#17 - Recital At Turkey Point

The gulch had a cow skull in it
which we worried was too much
then agreed on as being 'pretty fucking cool'.

I began standing on a rock
Next to a saguaro cactus like a shrapnelled ogre.

'These are the people who have offended me,'
I intoned, opening a scroll that unfurled
with a flourish, the far end bouncing off my boots
then rolling the several metres to my colleagues.
On the horizon behind me, an electrical storm
Gathered itself above a tan mesa.

'One, the man at the airport, who said I had
filled in my entry card incorrectly.'
Sporadic applause like apathetic sniper fire.
'Two, the French mathematician Jacques Tits.'
At the back, Rudy guffaws.

'Three, Rudy,' I say,
making a hasty amendment with my ballpoint pen,
'that crass bastard.'