anastomosis

the bush ate me.

night laughed,

together they mocked as

I swallowed spores

puffed with broken lungs,

tiptoed in the soft moss

so I couldn't be followed.

now the tree bark tangs,

undergrowth tangles,

beckons: get lost get lost!

a stranger here I enmesh myself

with agile strangeness.

listen, I was adrift

until I came to terms with it.

started sleeping under mushrooms,

above thrumming mycelium

zapping like neurons under the cold earth,

everything so exquisitely living,

bursting turgid green,

by claiming it I seem

to fill spare space, nexus net

erupting from my chest.

I lick the dew-drops off green leaves,

I do not need much mortal sustenance.

I release thick, golden urine

I am well and fungal.

I am grateful for the vines

I wrap around my sporulating body;

they comfort me when I cannot hear

the circular call of the ruru –

discs of beauty in dark air.

it isn't always night,

but when it's not I'm in the earth

curling in on myself,

dreaming vivid sweet-dreams,

sucking sustenance secretly.

and when the sun falls,

I burst out the dirt

unleash my spores

and colonise, again, the darkness.

Hebe Kearney (they/them) is a poet and librarian who lives in Tāmaki Makaurau. Their work has appeared in publications including: bad apple, Mantissa, Mayhem, samfiftyfour, Starling, Symposia, takahē, Tarot, and Poetry New Zealand Yearbooks. You can find them @he__be on Instagram.