Tamar Yoseloff
Fungi
If we think dishonestly, or malignantly, our thoughts
will die like evil fungi – dripping corrupt dew
John Ruskin, Proserpina
The smell –
wet anorak, fusty books, disturbed dust
of long unopened doors –
like the basement of your childhood,
beautiful scary darkness.
They poke
their tiny heads through dirt,
explorers from another age, and find
a world glassy with rain, a forest
thick with leaf mulch.
A good one,
if you’re starving, could save
your life. A bad one would kill you
after only one bite. Step on its poison head,
it billows black fumes.
Lost in the woods
and hungry, how to tell them apart?
You can trust the feel of flesh on your tongue,
good meat – you know it won’t hurt you,
you’re a bit of a witch yourself.
Tamar Yoseloff’s most recent collection, Barnard’s Star, was published by Enitharmon in 2004. A new collection, Fetch, is due from Salt in Spring 2007. She is the Programme Co-ordinator and a tutor for The Poetry School.
Page(s) 56
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The