please chew & swallow 

i open the fridge to find it 
full of mushrooms. all kinds. the dazzling 
of spores spread into the living room
like gold dust. i wonder who did this
& if they want to be paid for their work
or if they're more like a saint,
delivering without needing anything in return.
i make a bouquet of mushrooms & then
a crown. i am a beautiful mushroom human.
i pick up a huge cap & snap it in half
to feel the texture of the fungus. 
i dated a guy who lived near a mushroom field
& the smell of manure burst on a hot day
& the mushrooms curled out from under his 
fingernails for me to harvest. he was 
the one who wanted to marry me-- wanted 
an arch of white mushrooms to walk under.
he put one in my mouth & said eat. 
i'm grabbing a mushroom from the fridge 
& biting down on the head. i take 
a paring knife & slice off just the tip
of my finger to check it i've become 
one of them but no i still bleed. i still
have that dripping fluid. the veins 
of mushrooms are made of dirt. the hearts
of mushrooms pump gold through the air.
i open my mouth to release spores.
i'm planting mushrooms all along the walls
of my room where i will take the next lover
& the next lover & the next lover
& ask them to please chew & swallow 
this kind of flesh. i slice a cap 
in half though & it does bleed
just like my finger did. i tell the mushrooms
to take no hints on how to be alive
from a human like me who dreams only
of crawling into the refrigerator. 
what can you i do with all this dispersing?
i'm spreading. a hall of mushrooms.
a house of mushrooms. a family portrait
of mushrooms. this kind of budding 
can reach back in time. there i am
four years old filling a bath tub with 
caps, laying in there face up & 
watching the ceiling's 
mushroom brown gills breathe. there i am 
with a birthday cake of mushrooms. 
the blood turned styrofoam & still.