Red Caps by Moonlight
There are three hugging the pallor of the birch
as the moon drizzles light into the glade.
The branches of adjacent fir figure as abstractions,
framing the undulant gills, familiar lure of menace.
How throbbing is the memory of vaulting through
the gloam, deer legs sprinting deeper into dark.
Come morning, cheeks flayed with leaf-infested
scratches, repellant pocks from nesting in the furze, no hoofs,
no hide, just amanita sickness, psychotropic toxins inveigling
shape-shifting transcendence, vague memories of animal esprit.
These three are sentries. Behind the birch are dozens of toadstools,
red caps gloating with underworld enticement, a scramble of red
between-the-worlds allure. There is no time to leach away the acids.
A bite is worth more than a risk of a quibbling agitation and ataxia.
The moon swirls the redness to a boil and the night quickens into
starry strands of hypha and boundless transmutation.
KATE FALVEY is the author of a full-length collection, The Language of Little Girls (David Robert Books); and two chapbooks, What the Sea Washes Up (Dancing Girl Press) and Morning Constitutional in Sunhat and Bolero (Green Fuse Poetic Arts). Read more.