Terminal

~ after Heather Beardsley's "Strange Plants"


These are the ghosts of cities we loved
                    and lived in: perfect, scaled-down houses,

rooms now vined with glossy overgrowth.
                   Landmarks loosened from the horizon bond

closer to their ruined shadows. Which bird, which god, 
                  delivers these triumphs of otherworldly scale? 

The universe: nothing but a battered suitcase, its insides 
                 carpeted with remembered skies and glowing 

mycelia. Maps of the world,  speckled with fruiting spores.
                 It's said removal of a feeding tube hastens the process 

of dying, which is not necessarily terrible. It can be quiet 
                 when the heart stops beating— the hush of early

hours when streets are dark and empty, when only the wind
                 stitches knots and chains through forests unseen.