Your Smile

Here where we lie my smile kisses
night's damp palm, darkly intimate
as fungus and mold in
the incestuous lichen. Here

.

beneath the ginkgo, a dusty smut
of spores furs the sullen air,
all full of rancid butter smell.
Your wood is blank and unwelcoming

'

save where lumpy finger-thick
roots twine pallidly and
pierce the grain, exhaling and exuding
secrets from the black, moist soil

+

for me to grub and chew and swallow,
like truffles, or like love. Scratch me
a little splintered hole, dear,
and let me see your smile.

*
B.T. Murtagh