without frail gestures
Her yellow parachute detached it slip-ungripped from a wrist
All her olives rolled away the wet hyssop was misplaced
Its minty twigs shriveled & the bullocks pointless
Her matchstick-style carrots on blackened khokhloma
She was three kilos high bouncing hard on a rock
Puzzling at 1% and then within 23 minutes she was
Contoured out of commission churn-butter rendering zinc
Her receptivity to the ascetical was cancelled out
Like a capitalist prank she thoroughly undid herself
Her translations of photons all went unpublished + unread
Her cleansing casements all collapsed & they crumbled
Roasted in the metal rains – the hands of which – (if these
rains ever had hands) – were so enormous & so uncongenial
that whatever lingered there diminished 2-quick-primitively
Ragwort numbed
Dismissed unwelcome
Unfathered succumbed
Placement-vacant basement-self-debasement
Faltered wrecked
Garnished wrecked
Wrecked swept
Model Rocketry
She caromed. She zipped
A throaty turpentine voice
relayed unbiodegradable
fitly reproved enigmas &
it did so at just the right pace
neither rushed nor plodding
Not ‘quick as a limpet’ but
as ‘nimble as a pantomime’
Hitting the right spots, she
dabbed on her pulse points
her perfumed solvents; her
convoluted trails of exhaust –
pointing her pistols, she
grabbed life by the tonsils
Mycophagy
Calvatias Puffballs of the whitest flesh
– Which recall beefsteaks if
– French-fried with cumin
Lycoperdons Often found in half-shades,
– Burnt-over lands, and rich woods
– Try them baked in their own juice
Amanitas Ghastliness squared:
– Its breath is fetid and sour
– Its teeth thick and moist and mossy
Pleurotis Sultry queens of phantom manure
– Pink spores; overlapping filed caps
– Sautéed like oysters, they melt freely
Coprinus comatus Freely forking on leaf-mold
– If eaten raw, nutty and bitter
– It has a shaggy-mane; it is inky
Coprinus micaeus These – instead – are early-inky
– They adorn rubbish heads of spittle
– Don’t let their black juice repel you
Clavaria pulchra A silver spoon against its skin
– Will tickle these club-shaped ones;
– They prefer resting caves and poles
Russula emetica Orange-flecked globes which
– Tell the best puns in the glade
– If picked gently with turnip gloves
Morchellas Spongy, sweet, and jocular
– Typically located near sand-ponds
– Or between the toes of ogres
Fistulina hepatica Somehow, if squeezed with cream
– Into a muslin root ball over hot
– Vinegar, these taste like osmosis
Polyporus sulphureus This testy fan-shaped sulfur one
– Can be surprisingly tough so
– Try it stewed with rabbit legs
Lactarius deliciosus Marked by concentric hues
– The hoary-milk-mushroom
– Is aromatic if baked correctly
Cantharellus Its gills flicker and ripple
– But only in the button stage
– Its color? Dullest egg-yellow
Hypomyces Funnel-shaped and heavy
– Parasitic fungi with red coats
– Which taste like hail stones
Marasmius oreades With convex caps, erect
– In fairy rings; hundreds;
– Leathery, they decay slowly
—About the Author—
Simmons is a lawyer, a law professor, and a lifelong South Dakotan. His scholarship and teaching focuses on trusts and estates. He is an academic fellow and state chair of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. His poems can be found in El Portal, Corvus Review, Nebo, North Dakota Quarterly, Nine Muses, Thirteen Myna Birds, The Write Launch, Pasque Petals, The Showbear Family Circus, and elsewhere. His first full length collection titled Tod Browning Loose-leaf Encyclopedia was published Cyberwit in 2020.