the lion's mane

grows around my hard-wood waist
like a skirt-- white tassels
dangling down. this is a lesson
in naming, a man somewhere 
someday, years ago, watched
a mushroom grow & turn
into a lion. 

the lion roared
& spat spores into the soft earth.
the same man watched the spores
turn into more lions. he was
actually eventually eaten
by lions.

everything is alive,
even mushrooms & the lions 
plant their paws-- their
veins disperse as mycelium,
form a great body underneath
the forest where all 
the lions can speak
in lion. 

i dig myself into 
the soil to become a lion
& i get enmeshed with their
words: the gentle turn of
the soil, the reincorporation 
of dead leaves & dead animals 
as punctuation, i talk
to the lions.

the fungus among us
is me. the mane on my waist
getting thicker in the cool
damp dark of the dirt. i feel
myself becoming a skirt,
a mushroom skirt. overhead 
i hear the faint footsteps
of lions. 

you can eat them. 
the lions are known
to have magical qualities. 
i eat them, chew the strange-texture 
body of each lion. i find that white
cold heart & crush them
in my teeth. the mycelium moans,
i am a lion.