Deflowered
Last season, Gardener doffed his cap, downed a knee.
. “Sorry I stunted the pear. I’m sorry for rust,
. and the morning the pigeons got loosed.
. But you’ll nevermore see the likes of apples
. pinkening with such lust.”
They dismissed him for insolence and
welcomed a fresh Master Florist.
Ignorant of the work of turning earth,
he’s mastered taking shears to dainty necks.
Roses fall quick, lascivious.
Flirtatious dahlias yearn for beheading.
Bashful delphiniums spear themselves on wire.
Tulips bare all for a portrait.
A fling for Hollyhocks
and pornographic spree for Lilies.
Oh, corner Heather, sutured, clever,
. hiding behind the smallness of your umbels,
. imagining you’re protected.
Could Master be tender?
Clasp a veined hand to still the tremble?
She fears: . thirst
. . looking plain
. . winter
. . weeping too much sap out the cut
. . loneliness, bees, sunburn
. . crickets hopped from Jerusalem.
Heather’s afraid she’s not beautiful enough for a bouquet.
. . . . {gulp}
Dear Master,
. I may be gruff. I may
. be overrun with weeds and cough
. in spring’s pollen haze. I will look naked
. without . these . flowers.
. Please, spare me.
. Content yourself
. with Gerberas and Asters.
. . . . {gasp}
. Master?
Prelapsarian Lichen
. Ho Hum . Ho Hum
Across the tundra, a scientist sings
. teleology.
With tweezers and sleeve, he tools
. the Flora/Fauna twosome.
What say we? Lies!
Lichen’s not one thing, like a burning bush
. . . or a fruit tree.
Pity, really.
No underground laborat’ry
shall prove we’re just a fungus. It’s not among us.
. We’re no algae in abundance.
. We’re no Shropshire bacterial dunces.
Faeries named
. . . Elf Ear . . Pixie Foam
. . . Gnome Fingers . . Dragon Bone
and our pendular bodies
that defy lovely
. . . Black Eye Stye . Pimpled Kidney
. Lobed Bumple . Blistered Jelly
. . . . Warty Beard . Freckled Belly
. Bare-bottom Spore . Ruptured Acne
We grow awry and inedibly over apocalyptic scree—
. paint flakes, hairball crottles, vulval fringe along granite, lipstick crustaceans in transit.
. . . . Our symbiotic color
. . . . destined for an ancestor blanket
. . . . homing in ammonia
. . . . saddening an afternoon.
A queer existence—loose on the ground
cast out of the heavens.
. Or unattached
. a
. kite
. caught
. in a
. branch
Fungiplasty (Bottom Surgery)
pileus flesh repand
moist when ruddy
pendulous cap
abruptly thins toward edge
. . The procedure to rectify your organ is minimally invasive
viscid when hygrophanous
rarely collapsing ring
of superficial pale fibrils
the color of tallow
. . Put on this gown with the opening to the front
evanescent veil elastic
obsoletely virgate
internally stuffed or hollow
tapers to a thread-like stalk
. . First, the surgeon will prepare the surface for spores
clammy gills emarginate
connected by veins
the color of clay, pallid-cinnamon
adnexed glans never compact at the apex
. . Then, impregnate it with the fungus
a pruinose luster
almost a troop of clusters
adpressedly floculose
even mildly fibrillose
. . Breathe deeply and count backwards from ten
when young sheathed
in a wooly netted veil
naked when full grown
with a slight odor of radishes
The Toadstool Confesses
Our briefest bloom1 anchors itself to loam.
. What appears firm2
lacks the persistence of wooded stem.
. We foment flesh in the firmament.
Our brethren, Elfin Saddle and Shaggy Parasol,
primp a lawn with monstrous sponges.
Had you tasted the ferment of puddle-berries,
you’d don Furry Slippers,
fanning your own steps to climb pine.
The brackets, yes! . Brackish
. colonization on fresh corpses.
We form conks from water and lies.
My cousins, the puffballs
. (oft mistook for out-of-sea urchins)
envy the spermatophytes3
their engorgement.
Puffballs exhale smoke,
marauding the gaudy flower theater
. . with hazy sex.
We camp mermaids, too, gills quivering
beneath our bonnet-caps,
snail iridescence. Or line-girls
occasionally stalked, erect,
. . splitting into rays.
Don’t be fooled by nomenclature:
. ‘mushroom’ destined for stew
. and ‘toadstool’ for the morgue.
We’re devilish tricksy when it comes right down
. . to nourishment or tomb.
Mycophagists! We dare you to tromp
through the forest. Dig us up. Scribble notes.
Pour over us like texts in which you read
the confidence of your own inscriptions.
If left to our own taxonomy,4
we’ll puppet
. Fairy Fingers
. Toothed Jelly . Lion’s Mane . Dead Man’s Foot . Chicken Lips
. Bear’s Head . Turkey Tail . Eyelash Cups
. Hair Sedge Smut . Pig Ears . Golden Navel
. . . . Black Earth Tongue
1 nay, don’t dignify it by comparison to that glam
2 the stool, the bench, the seat
3 those fussy girls with skirts of a color
4 Amanita? Armillaria?
Julian née Sara Mithra writes about things that haven’t happened and never could happen. If the Color Is Fugitive (Nomadic Press, 2018) was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Poetry. English-to-English translations appear in bæst and The Lifted Brow, plant poison in Birds Fall Silent in the Mechanical Sea, singsong at meow meow pow pow, and nonbinary embodiment in Name and None. They exhibit black and white collage zines and handmade chapbooks at festivals in the Bay Area.
