A Literary Magazine in Support of the Jewish Community
American Vertigo
The night is full of holes
As bullets rip the sky.
—U2, “Vertigo”
It usually happens out of the blue
while tying my shoe or rising from bed
or turning my head to see
beyond my peripheral view.
One nation
It’s dysphoric, as walls, ceiling, & floor
spin, no matter their constitutional hues,
dividing me from my body & all I thought
was true. A siren blares in my ears—
under God
the noise of discord changes the endowed
state of the room into a tilt-a-whirl,
declaring a logic of violence as all sense
kaleidoscopes like shattered glass. There’s nothing
indivisible
numinous to share, no self-evident reason
for my being in this confusing snare. I close
my eyes, lie on my side, hope for swift release.
This summer, though, a milder version
with liberty
lasted all week. I could not speak a word
to right myself. So there I was, my canalith
a monolith of complaint, who had no tool
to make the crooked path straight.
no justice,
Voices crystalized in their vestibule,
making their reality known, adding their furious
syllables to the hours, revealing that sometimes,
yesterday creeps past tomorrow, then records—say it!—
no peace.
Julie L. Moore
A Best of the Net and seven-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Julie L. Moore is the author of four poetry collections, including, most recently, Full Worm Moon, which won a 2018 Woodrow Hall Top Shelf Award and received honorable mention for the Conference on Christianity and Literature's 2018 Book of the Year Award. Her poetry has appeared in African American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Image, New Ohio Review, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, and Verse Daily. She is the Writing Center Director at Taylor University, where she is also the poetry editor for Relief Journal. Learn more about her work at julielmoore.com.
