Fovea

The bottom of a ceiling drops out to pallid clouds
(not yet attired in mushroom cap and gown)
a silver cyanide pill that Einstein coughed up
when he was Heimliched by a tyrant's fit.
If we were to create a desert we would not deal in lead
but dress in it.

Las Vegas glitter in vitreous detachment
and Einstein would acquiesce that the Earth is shrinking
like a stack of chips,
a marble buffeted by walls of numbers,
slowing in orbit.
Because with our hands grasping the golden handle,
we assumed we could spin on red and black spokes
like the stock ticker in Times Square
that moves faster than the clouds, ticking away time.

At midnight we land on double zero
and you place your coin-jangling hand in mine.
I press in your new eyes until milk-clear clouds
spill over the flood gates.
My head swims in the shallows,
spinning like a roulette wheel,
igniting before contact with the night-cold concrete.