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At the Mineral and Gem Show

Today's poem is At the Mineral and Gem Show by Maureen Thorson. It is read by Gibson Fay-LeBlanc.

At the Mineral and Gem Show

We were allowed to hold a fallen piece of the moon.
Then a piece of Mars. Many bits of Earth

were on display. A man swept a handheld blacklight
over my engagement ring. We watched

the diamond fluoresce. Garnets and citrines
were offered for sale. There must be a reason

why people carve onyxes into mushrooms, make
abstract angels from labradorite. Girls in black dresses

inspected druzy amethysts through jeweler's loupes.
We entered the raffle for an immense tourmaline.

The man who explained the moon rock told us
the rusty-looking stuff was nothing special,

just a melted bit of the Sahara. Like everything else,
the iron in our blood is billions of years old.