Mushrooms

Why these monsters? Tumors of pale fat
snouting up in leaves. Among November goldenrod,
forest moss, tangled white chickweed,
they bloat like small stomachs
digesting deadwood for the green they can't make.

Ask the slug glutting slow circles, ruining the larger circle
of the cap. Ask the fly, groggy with chill, whining
for a last meal at this cold table, ask rot liquefying,
stumps softening, even as these mutants will soften
into a black jam trembling from long necks.

A moonlight wheel of gills hidden underneath,
a million spores sifting invisibly - And all underground
feathery tangles of the mycelium, the true plant:
the mushrooms are its fruit, its roots dissolve the dying.
If the dying don't die, there is no more beginning.