Poems by Marx, Petersen, and Sheffield

  

Work by Doug Marx, Paulann
Petersen, and Derek Sheffield

       

        

Four Poems by Doug Marx

    

Bracket Fungi

Step by gnomic step
I find them
barnacled to bark,
pale wattles, tumors
affirming a rumor
of organic unity–    
    
witness blaze or scar
the mouth they kiss
where death lives,  
    
all family
and no branch, each
filament a thought
splicing a web,
    
how like tired hearts
stumps crumble.
    
Don’t breathe. They eat the past,
immortal, anemic,
their spores are everywhere.