Forest
Erogenous zones in oaks
slung with
stoles of lace-lichen the
sun’s rays spilling
through leaves in
broken packets a force
call it nighttime
thrusts mushrooms up
from their lair
of spawn mycelial
loam the whiff of port
they pop into un-
trammeled air with the sort of
gasp that follows
a fine chess move
like memories are they? or punctuation? was it
something the earth said
to provoke our response
tasking us to recall
an evolutionary
course our long ago
initiation into
the one-
among-others
and within
my newborn noticing have you
popped up beside me love
or were you here from the start
a swarm of meaning and decay
still gripping the underworld
both of us half-buried holding fast
if briefly to a swelling
vastness while our coupling begins
to register in the already
awake compendium that offers
to take us in you take me in
and abundance floods us floats
us out we fill each
with the other all morning
breaks as birdsong over us
who rise to the surface
so our faces might be sprung
Forrest Gander, a writer and translator with degrees in geology and literature, was born in the Mojave Desert and lives in northern California. Read more.
Forrest Gander’s “Forest” was first published in Emergence Magazine. Published in Twice Alive (2021, New Directions Press, NY).