raw belle mushrooms

by the bag. little round capsized boats.
i discovered their glory in march 
when we wore blue rubber gloves
& spoke softly to each other
from the front seat of my dying car.
the streets emptied of wanting
& were replaced with an all consuming
aimlessness. most days i forgot
what we were to each other? 
we wondered through 
our own pasts like cartographers.
somedays u were my mother & other days
a girl i wanted to sleep with in high school.
the grocery stores, barren, i began
to research how to grow a farm
inside a small two bedroom apartment.
when i first typed this poem i misspelled
"grocery stores" as "grocery stories"
but "stories" is more accurate. 
i was writing stories of how long i would survive.
about the farm, they suggest starting small
a tomato plant of some potted herbs.
i looked for seeds. but what i wanted
was to grow mushrooms. bushels.
enough to keep me fed. mushrooms
growing down from the ceiling.
mushrooms beneath the bed.
i bought as many as i could--
too many to eat. some people stocked up
on absurd amounts of hand sanitizer 
but there i was with mushrooms.
i ate most of them raw. rubbery--
like absent meat. sprinkling
of salt. the granite kitchen counter.
you, looking out the window towards
a brick wall, the next building
only inches away. everything 
was getting tighter & more distant
at the same time. the television
comforted itself. when time allowed,
i came back to nestle next to you.
i should have told you i was imagining us
floating in a little mushroom raft.
where should we go? instead we went 
to our separate rooms & tried to undo ourselves. 
me, the budding mushroom farmer
& his tiny flock of dreaming.