Board trustees tapped heirloom spoons against the graduates’
wet green skulls to get at the yolk. Academics, in chorus,
drilled and blew until we were bright       and
airy,       ready for democracy.       Cheeks inflated like bubonic plague,
foreheads stretched like      drumskin, rainbowed
like wounds, skin  whining, funny helium voices.
I watched the best essayists of my generation float
over the Amazon       rainforest and burning       California
to drink the sun from the sky,    bite and chew and beat its yellow,
so they came back to us     rigged, rainless sierras.
Each time we fell to the ground like flies under an educative glass,
never realising: some skies have a limit, and this is ours.