mycelial, eating toxins together,
decomposing what’s still indigestible
about this place. The singed taste.
Could spread our soiled hands wide,
vegetate, infiltrate, collaborate.
Below ground, we could grow
fat on loss, bust out in the wildest
shapes. Puffball. Flagellate.
Our mistakes gorgeous in dispersal
across polluted skies. Help me try.
—
Lesley Wheeler, Poetry Editor of Shenandoah, is the author of six poetry collections, including Mycocosmic (Tupelo Press, March 2025) and The State She’s In. Her other books include the hybrid memoir Poetry’s Possible Worlds and the novel Unbecoming. Her poems and essays have appeared in Poets & Writers, Pleiades, Poetry, Ecotone, and Massachusetts Review.
