When We Learn to Die Like Trees
We become standing snags,
home to lichen’s milky green blotches,
beige fungi sprouting from our shoulders,
hen-of-the-woods hatching on knees,
tiny orange mushrooms blooming along our toes.
Fans of turkey-tail fungi lace our backs
with bands of sage, cream, russet, umber—
intricate tattoos. On our buttocks,
soft tapestries of moss. Totems
to woodpeckers who riddle us with holes
in search of insects burrowing under our skin.
Haven to bats who nestle in our armpits
to escape the light.
Little by little, weather whittles us,
wet rot, dry rot depending on the season.
Our skin hardens like bark, flakes away,
revealing beetles’ carved hieroglyphs.
Toes erode, fingers crack. One day a storm
snaps us off at the waist—heads, torsos
strewn about the woods like broken statues.
A deer rubs its rump, seeking a scratch,
and a patch of what’s left of us crumbles.
Worn to our thighs, separate stumps
that gradually subside into duff,
soft nest where a brown snake curls in rest.
Pam Baggett is author of Wild Horses (Main Street Rag, 2018), which received an honorable mention for the Brockman-Campbell Award. Read more.