The Reading (Thank you, Alice Fulton, for the sky blue flower and the inspiration.)

I keep going back to the poet at the podium
to her black bulbous hair and big bold eyes
and how she smiled when I said it was my birthday.
I held out hope it would be good
no, easy.
Instead it was hard, with clunks of images clunking together and
if the sky is too small for you I'll give you a sky blue flower
No, the sky is too enormous for me.
Sometimes I want to hide from it in the hallway with no windows, no,
the closet in my room so it will not shine on me
I'll take the flower with me, no, I'll leave it at the door.
I keep going back to the days when I would throw my arms open to it -
The cornflower blue crayon swiped across the page. This is day.
This is enough, a swipe, a streak of flower blue line, it indicates more.
You can see that by the way I chose to put it at the top and let it trickle down.
Everyone has a different idea of trickle, and they are all small.
Small is manageable, no, not really, small is frightening because it
gets smaller always, if not bigger, always smaller, and that scares me -
how can you be more less than afraid of a blue flower
I keep going back to the podium alone. Open my mouth. Close it too soon. You do it. I say. Do it for me. It's my birthday.