Mycelium

by E.W.I. Johnson

You are my rotten berry,
lush and red in summer
and falling into collapse
when my fingers smear

your juices onto my nails.
I penetrate your false
skin and enter,
turn you over and find

a sick moon on a leafed
hook, the white-aqua
tumor of mold bursts
flesh with its animal fur.

I bite into the spot
and devour your sour
and trash your thick
slime, bluish phlegm.

You enter me and
I enter you, now
not even an inferno
could fuse us more.

Soon you grow on
every surface, you
spread across
my possessions

and infect every
pore in my skin,
your mycelium fibers
in my lace brain.

E.W.I. Johnson (he/him) is a poet living and working in Chicago. He has poems appearing in publications such as Sonora Review, Jet Fuel Review, and the climate change anthology Dear Human at the Edge of Time (Paloma Press, 2023). Follow his writing, skateboarding, and unusual plants on Instagram at @ewijohnson_poet