AT THE NEW EARTH SEMINAR

Tell a tale of skin coming undone, of organs
standing in for continents.
Your fingers, please, will tug on the bell-pull.
The hired help will be summoned and this illusion can get cleaned up.
The paint's not even dry yet, and I am turning in my pecs
for a sturdy front bumper. It has the message I want to put across:
Robust, blunt in its self-interest, devouring the miles
and slick with the juice of incidental insects.

Turn me in. Update me. Set my wavering fingers around the pen,
I'll sign anything.
I have aged ten decades in a minute, and in another, I'll be back,
trailing a filament bouquet and mumbling a few pledges
about the future's bounty.

Some call me Lion. Some call me Prairie.
Some call me Worm of the Earth. Some call me Great Daisy,
Seedling, Stomper of Whims, Exploiter of the Growth Impulse.

I am a mouthful of dirt, I am the hollowing-out.
I am dinosaur tar calling for quarantine,
a fever on a match head that can't afford to be out-dated.
All niceties will be scissor-locked.
All second-guesses will be double-sealed
and mailed to their prospective buyers
(They'll get the message).

All parking lots will be set ablaze.
All breezes are being re-routed.
All party-talk will be reduced
to the squabble of fighter pilots lost in low-lying fog.
And you, Sweet Lady, take my hand.
We're about to do something they used to call The Twist.