She and I were chasing ammonites

through corridors of coral

when the molten basalt upwelled.

Out past the Siberian Traps,

CO₂ levels went clean off the scale.

Then it rained for a million years.

Carried along in the amber, corpses 

of young crinoids, poor disaster taxons.

I could almost taste the iridium anomalies.

Days to the nearest Igneous Province,

rivers braiding, an acid pulse on the way …

She rests a feeler on my thorax.

We’ve been through worse, my love. We climb

the calcium ramp, risk the shocked quartz.