Knock, Knock
The garden-variety poisonous mushroom
takes its stand overnight
so quickly we might have witnessed
parturition,
had we known which patch of grass to watch, were watching
how we chose to carve the dark, in lieu of quizzing
the dead on tunnels
of white light theory. So
the offending cap
sits on its stout stem awaiting my kinder in
the stage where the world requires tasting to be
understood. How I see
Chlorophyllum molybdites:
all agency,
the Angel Of Death’s new hire. No longer do I
recognize my bucolic backyard as a place
of comfort, my borders
breached. This should disqualify me
from parenting
sweepstakes, though my ambitious are small, at least for now,
just larger than the danger that pops up wearing
Alice’s Eat Me sign.
And being a sensible girl
she did as she
was told and so outgrew her domicile, then shrank
so that she almost ceased to matter. I don’t care
much for mattering. I
did before fungi demanded
my vigilance,
my time now spent in ominous wariness, though
when I wear a seer’s shawl, nobody and his big
sister listen – that is
my curse for cavorting with gods,
dabbling in
creation. I don’t know my place and so pluck
the aggressor, which seems to sigh as dirt loosens,
surrenders its grip and
somewhere above, below, I hear
someone laughing
as though I had told the funniest joke ever.
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