In my 112-year-old house, I’m waiting for the chicken of the woods to erupt at the base of a craggy oak. The ground’s sopped from last night’s diagonal rain. Its hyphae grow mouths to eat, to gossip, to sing the soil, and I suspect I’m in a period of learning to close my mouth for growing children, for certain foods, for what was, since wants and wishes are subjunctive. A memory: us emerging from the tule fog to the cypressed coast, driving up and north-going. The great trees of the world—I’ve seen two–the fleshy thenar of your palm, exquisite at the wheel. A finger named for the ring it wore. Our melon-sized baby inside me. A middle is only determined by its end. If you’re once happy, is it the same happiness if recalled? I can think so. My foraging neighbor promises to help me prepare the mushroom, ensures its woodsy taste—peppery on the tongue—divination. Meanwhile is found waiting. I hope we’re the only species that wastes time before it’s spent.

 

       Alive with pharaohs,

       a tree’s famous saeculum

       inside rings it’s worn