I like the slick lacquered lid

          of a mushroom in the damp,

       shy

of the secret of its gills

                                     vaulted, ticklish,

             a kind of velvet

intended only to be known 

                     by leaf rot     forest floor.

The swamps are ferrous, 

             moss-edged     fogged with spore

I stay close

              to the waxy fluorescence

of Orange Peel ascocarps, 

                        the snuffed wicks

           of the Candlestick fungus

like the small, 

                pale arm that reaches 

from a wet log

I dream of the ice caves of 

                   Bearded Tooth     Lion’s Mane 

mycelial snow cascade

find ears of jelly cupped to felled elder

           plush, evanescent, 

              a maroon light listening

for parakeets     bark of heron disturbed,

a landscape

                   intimate 

             as the ridge of skin and cartilage

known only

                  to pillow      lover’s soft eye.