Mushrooms
pokey noses, bulbs of collected bacteria rise to greet the air
indulge themselves on substrate, extracting minerals
with every waking hour they
become more plentiful, peaking up from
nooks in between the crannies in between the nooks powerful, profound,
bloated
with nine parts water they stand, grow
ripen into more vivid, more large, more, more- until their robust bodies
concave below them
leaving one part to remain
withering, dying, drying they
become ugly- weak
in their small skeletal figures, nutrient remains
as they disintegrate
dropping spores, releasing new life that starts over again with
pokey noses, bloated bodies
to be shrunken again
About the author: My name is Emily Gilliam and I am a senior high school student at The Independent School in Wichita, Kansas. I am eighteen years old and I have been previously published in Echoes Literary Magazine for my poem "Looking Out over the Hills of Machiavelli's House," in FEMS ZINE for my poem, "I am a Woman" and I am the current Editor in Chief of the Literary and Arts Magazine at The Independent School for the 2016-2017 Edition. I am passionate about women finding and displaying their own voice.
