we belong to the dark oak woods
and if we don’t, where do we go? mushrooms
stretch on islands void of flowers, of grass
of life beyond that which grows in networks
under the soil / if we don’t belong to the trees,
then surely the mycelium that consumes us /
surely the mycelium that branches into our
bones and skin, wraps us finger by limb by neck
to pull us down because we are safe here and
there’s nothing to hurt you in this land
except the mushrooms themselves as they stretch
to the sky / they stretch to the lungs of the cows
and grow from their backs, a moo throttled
by foreign veins encroaching on every fold
in their brain / i wish to belong to the dark oak
woods that curve through the frozen waters
and snowy cliffs but even the mushrooms
have rooted there—and who’s to say, anyway,
that the trees don’t already belong to what
rots and rattles and reaches under our feet?
K.S. Baron is a poetry editor at Last Leaves Magazine and a hobby-driven digital artist. Her work has previously appeared in Capsule Stories, Havik Poetry, Burnt Pine Magazine, and others. She has a soft spot for sharp things (like cats and cacti) and finds herself drawn to the moon.
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