One day, eventually, no escaping,
I give a speech – special guest
at the podium: stress. Gem
of an audience, a convention
of lapidarists. Hot, I broke open
the topic.
What was the problem?
I’d rather have been lost among rocks,
fractures and folds, than found
formally dressed, among strangers.
Exposed. They sat like fossils.
I gripped the podium as if
on a cliff, troubled there
by vertigo. Spoke. It was something
of a lava flow. My only hope
to cling to the script, stay cool
in the face of stony ridicule.
I’m flowing now, as if the video
won’t leave me alone, the footage fresh
with my quaking. I go
along with the painted tribesmen, sad
to have their spirits stolen
by a rigid cameraman … walked
away from surprise applause, pocketed
their gift: a polished trilobite.
Give it, at home in my warm palm
– wide of any seismic likelihood –
a reception better honed
only in the Cambrian explosion.