blackened rind/white fuzz growing on top of the surface,/i know it’s dead by looking at its
unhinged maw./saw its core rotating./inner gears rusted./imposed weld on last tendril/that causes the last hematoma./no structure can quell the volcanic outpour,/gnawing on bone since the last feast./we have walked into the fumes/hoping that the slumber would end./the clouds above were hammered with jagged edges/to incise the mass and release the colony/of spores residing within flesh oxidized to indigo/upon gazing into the eyes of its assailant/upon arrival, cut to the end.

— — —

the spores migrate through bile/ while the body latches on/to rotted trunks and decayed vines./ and yet, the stalk sustains the cap./ hold high and stand erect / seeping these primordial chants into your furrowed, dendritic rind / blackened gills hold the vicious underbelly./ welding by ridge./ molded sap./ deliberate score./ gashes strewn./ mycelium walls sewn into connectome./ keep in decline./ desecrate./ flawless apoptosis.

Sudikshaa Amar is a poet raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and a student at UC Berkeley studying neuroscience and history. Her work has been published in IAMB, The Groke, and Wordgathering. When not writing, she likes to crochet and forage for mushrooms along East Bay oak and redwoods.