Mushrooms

 

Mushrooms (edited version) 

The patriarch-tree is dying
Crumbling from the inside out
Impotent leaves wilt, like brewer’s droop
Its bark has become thin

The mushrooms are moving in

There are so many wonderful words in the world of the mushroom:
That fungal Polari of things which are neither plant nor beast
Carpophores, where multiple sexes intertwine to make the fertile hymenium
Rings and volvas, flesh and spores
Tiny, unseen, infesting the broken
Floating from caps that are silky, fibrillose,
Or shaggy.

The leaf litter is brown and grey
Like the corners of backstreet yards
Behind the pubs and clubs
Where these mushrooms gather
The solid trunks of man and woman
Crumble from the inside out
And the glittering fishnets of mycelium
Feed upon it,
Where these mushrooms appear

Some mushrooms - field, chestnut - are respectable
Accepted, normalized. Straightened.
Some are exotic, but safe
Tesco’s got Shiitake
Go on, live a little
You can always go back to normal

But there are others, wild little winking twinks
Like Orange Peel and Scarlet Elf Cups
Queer and bright, hiding in the leaf litter
Tough leather-boy Bracket fungi
Like biceps flexing on the trunks and branches
Femboi Parasols and the butchest of butch Stinkhorns
Honey Fungus teases the roots with her honey fingers
And Giant Puffball-bears cast shadows and spores
Over the playful, ottery Boletus

And then come the Queens
Glorious and garish, with names fantabulosa:
Chanterelle and Grisette, Blusher and Blewit
Waving their Fairy Clubs around their Sulphur Tufts
Rennée Russula and Madame Morel will treat you well
But Lady Agaric will bang a Liberty Cap on your head
And then leave you for dead

The mushrooms are here – not animal, not plant
A thing in themselves - Queer
We turn to ink, deliquesce
But we’re still here
In mycelial feelers, sending out secret signals

To create a place
For the new mushrooms

 

May 2022/September 2023

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