by Noam Hessler
Morels to christen the palate:
Chaga for healing the heart:
Destroying angel for removing the heart:
Orange shelf mushrooms for their aesthetic appeal:
— They sing on the plate.
— He sings in the woods in his overalls, he
With the grand, full lungs.
— Fireballs puff in the skies below his eyelids.
— He dreams when he’s not yet speaking.
Arranged in bouquet in the warroom
These fleshes, these gills and morsels
Suggest a utopia, that there will still be death
After he is done living.
Wide-hearted friend to his colleagues,
Broad-souled doctor with the trembling legs:
This mechanical ape, beak-clacking medic of
Death is a hypocrite — what else to call a man
Who is so vividly and athletically drawn by God?
Neither animal or plant, not dead, never dead,
Laughing fires from the holes in his face, bursting.
______
Noam Hessler is an American poet. They recently released a book called Officeparks. They live in New York and Vermont, and can be reached online via Twitter @poetryaccnt1518.
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