What if the wild morel bloomed just
under my tongue and the spongy corners
of the mouth were layered with words
upon words going down to its roots:
sponge mushroom, nightshade, black horse,
mauricular, Vulgar Latin’s dark brown,
Mauros, ancient Greek’s dark Moor.
I’d be fed a civilized food. 

I’m glad it exists also here among hardwoods
where I kick the leaves of yellow birch,
red maple, white oak, scrape away twigs
and humus to find its dense head
furrowed as the brain’s gray matter.
And glad to stumble upon its brethren, wild
onion, wild lettuce, watercress and toothwort,
purslane and shepherd’s purse, that tell me

if I knock, the forests will open,
if I say hunger, the trees will say feast here,
if I stick out my tongue, the wafers
of sweet fern and sweet william will feed me.