35 Mushrooms in a Tennessee Graveyard by Gregory Emilio

For a moment, I’m tempted to believe
that the pumpkin-colored constellations
of chanterelles blossomed above a grave
possess in their ribbed, wavering tunics
and scalloped ridges, in their apricot scent,
some mineral trace of the long-gone bodies
below them, some fecund, far-off echo—
a little human afterlife in the spores.

After a hard rain, anything remains
possible, even the moist, cricketed idea
of the divine, a bright fungal miracle.
Elizabeth Anne Riley’s bone-dust rising
up delicious, in spangled profusion—
an offering to eat, if not believe.