Ann De Forest
Lichen
drawn to distress
I gloss across bark and boulder
meaning no malice
you misread me as like you
hastening decay
opportunistic by nature
I merely seek space
to reside as intimate guest
symbiote silvering surfaces
ever alien to the limbs I adorn
unlike any other living being
fronding, fruiting so delicately
you must touch me to know
my fringe bristles
I am tougher and sharper than I look
The Locust
This severed tree, top sheared off by a hurricane so long ago I can’t
recall its name stands tall as the surrounding houses, base hollowed,
wide enough for a child to enter and hide protected. Ivy scales
trunk’s corrugated bulge to leech what life remains, taunt of green
gloss draped over grey gnarl, veiling the wizened face that stares
unblinking through my kitchen window. Immense in its decay,
unrepentant in its ugliness, our neighbor’s honey locust sheds
bark in thick, ridged scabs. Trunk furs red dust into the soil, feeds
slick thrive of worms. Grey tails startle, twitch. Camouflaged, squirrels
leap, burrow deep, stowing nuts for winter’s scarcity. In spring sticks
sprout from ruined crown, stretch, leaf green, bloom white. Tree lives
while dying, dies while living. Even as embattled wood dissolves, roots
tentacle underground and rise spiked and treacherous in the soft mortar
between my patio’s solid bricks to pierce my palm and draw fresh blood.