Velvet Foot

(Flammulina velutipes)

 
An opera jacket 
was gifted to me—

I didn't ask for it—black 
satin crepe, spangled

with random beads. 
I could wear it 

to a performance 
in a theatre, my love

guiding me through rows
of velvet-tufted seats until

we come to P-64, P-66
and the lights lower.

Between the world we left
when we passed through

the doors, and the world
beginning to unreel before us,

there is a vastness I can't
fathom or cross. Caps of rust

brown and golden yellow 
tether the edges, 

darkening with time,
clustered on wood.