Boats Anchored by Mycelium
I peeled like citrus & found a crown
made of shark teeth in a place too deep
for sea divers. Here—
we take our potions for breakfast & breakdown
boxes for lunch.
We search for seeds sown by clown fish, dropped
from the mouths of eel spit grins—we sift salt
through our toothed gills, become fruiting bodies under mushroom caps.
We hop beehives, drip
ourselves in oil & honey—thrive anger into tumbleweeds.
We scrape against champagne
bottles; fear dying in a swarm
like a wasp: is it better or worse to be part of the excess?
My tongue is black licorice: a mechanism
made of traps, mice chasing
tails into my open mouth, cast ashore
by driftwood—
we ambulance across ice. Asleep, I
record miles of roots on my arms.
The Charadriiform on Matters of State
I am milked out of answers And fossil
stiff An affair of seafoam and kelp,
my tongue to test the waters first
—this fire This fire (chewed through
rigging oil—) strong Dissonance here,
how to unravel and let drift, the isthmus
flat and pink Implosions are like that: taut
scars of lights broken and humming open
Open, then a raking through low tide,
carved faces: the horror of reflections: a
gull squawking; goes on squawking
More than Receipts & Hollow Pockets
Mama: made of pollen—her body: contained
with anther & dull smudged eyes. She is the lift-bridge
of continents: I cannot find the edges of her, they sprout
daffodils in the woods behind our house. Bulbs drop
like secrets out of telephone calls: Mama
curls herself into cords—I stroke leaves & she strokes
wires. Daffodils keep pushing
up with poison ivy, quarantined from the garden.
Mama wants to play bumblebee—can only wasp
her way among them. I watch her
lift petals & hand them out like flyers—sending them further
than sundial shadows; further than continental crust.
When they finally settle it is the sigh
of a dial tone & scattered powder.
Erin Koehler is currently a senior at SUNY Geneseo studying English (Creative Writing) with a Native American Studies minor. After college, Erin hopes to find a career writing children’s literature and being creative. Bilbo Baggins is her literary kindred spirit because of his love of comfort, good food, and things that grow.
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