In the lottery for topics I got

obsidian—that appearance of glass

when lava cools; 
at the margin of what it means

to be a rock. Good thing

I was adopted, at home
with loose connections.

This dark off-cut from our teacher

I am passing around
comes from the island-quarry

on my poster. Somebody

once sailed there to fashion by hand
a blade, a necklace maybe.

Obsidian can be traced back

with precision, the Britannica
told me, because each

hardened flow is unique.

X-rays helped to map
the Pacific migration of tools

(red on my chart)

and their peoples (green).
Local, though, is the volcanic

glass in this closeup

of a coral eye on Rapa Nui
where the statues—hands up—

face the ocean, or inland?

The way they look
fooled our teacher, too.

And it isn’t strange I cannot see

more of myself in that off-cut
now drifting along the stoic row

of parents watching.

They’re only slightly less opaque
than a bucket of water.

The mirrors, I mean,

that obsidian made. Pre-metal.