Before I was a wanted child, I was a catacomb
of arms beneath the earth, never in want
of someone to hold. I held myself holding
the earth in little gasps, how I toothed
through the soil and into the dove-
gray air, pushing up all over in mouthfuls,
palmfuls of rot. White rot all over the earth.
How I took and took and wreathed myself
of satin gills, mycelic grave sister, how ambered
and hardy. White rot gnashing into itself.
Blushing the stumps. Where once I was, I am
always near. I am wherever I’m going, a body
fruiting and fruiting still in golden frills
all over the earth, self and certain and rival
and lover, and this is where we begin.

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Mary Simmons is a queer poet from Cleveland, Ohio. She is the author of Mother, Daughter, Augur (June Road Press). She earned her MFA from Bowling Green State University, where she also served as the managing editor for Mid-American Review. Her work has appeared in The Baltimore Review, ONE ART, trampset, Moon City Review, Variant Lit, The Shore, and elsewhere. She lives with her cat, Suki, at the edge of the woods.