“Fungi and Vultures” by Autumn Moss

The Earth is dead, long live decay as an extant form of life

Pandemic and extinction had aerosolized 

Settling into the low atmosphere and into lively huffing lungs

Thunder cracks of tree trunk snaps, heavy thunk of dropping deer carcass

Both at the foot of a beat up pickup truck

.

Waxy opal eyes can no longer see the stars or reflect souls

A large oak, no longer a tabernacle protecting life in each cranny of its branches

A bursting womb touching only one heartbeat

Slick asphalt with its gaps filled with rotting flesh

Flattened grass ripped from view of the Sun covered by rotting wood

.

Acid rain dampening biomatter

Coaxing myocilin to strangle woody tissue and burrow deep

Feasting along fallen angel-winged vultures

A shooting star diving straight down for ten-thousand feet

From the heavens where they evolved to need less oxygen in a quest to soar safely

Out of reach of all by metal-skeletoned solder-blooded engines

.

Thick serrated beak tearing and mutilating as muscle is ripped from tendons and bone

Pathogenic blood-stenched liver and swollen pair of kidneys where disease

And poisons of the body are laid to rest

Melt, neutralize, and are left benign by burning churning avian stomach juices

Purifying the dead

.

Three paces away, the fungi are giving last rights to the ancients of the forest

A grim-reaping fairy ring guides ancestors into humus

Nourishment for fallen seeds and tiny sprouts 

To rise and spread their branches into the sunrise peeking through the nightfall

Readying a home for the orphaned fawn stumbling into her first steps