A moss crawls in

the inner corners of my mouth.

It finds purchase in plump flesh.

When no one’s watching,

I strip it away with my teeth.

I swallow it down,

pray it’s quelled by bile.

The moss craves quiet resettlement,

clings to my gullet and my tongue before

claiming my lips.

Don’t kiss me; fear the brush of the unfamiliar,

lest it tear your skin away.

Moss creeps further: down my chin, up my jawbone, across my brow.

Spores seize the untapped forest, cloak it in a second skin.

The trees bloom green, an invader at war with its mother.

My moss trails from my eyelashes, drapes my hair, hangs from fingertips, clings to the hem of

my dressing gown.

I leave behind two sets of footsteps, boot prints blurred by my train.

I am a biome, we are symbionts; a creature anointed.

We escape the present company; we creep by backroads, coalesce into the cypresses, collapse

into the earth; just another organism petrified, arms thrown wide to reap dappled light

and westerlies, mouth agape, shelter to the yellow-throated warblers.