Mushroom Poem (Renny Gong)

the key to foraging mushrooms

I think

is to go when it’s raining just a bit

not for any reason other than that the drizzle 

puts you in the most mushroomy of moods

you should also probably bring

a mushroom expert

who can say those are good

those will give you terrible poops

and those will make you shiver in the night

or if you are running low on mushroom experts 

perhaps a group of mushroom enthusiasts will suffice 

as they can talk to one another

nod their amateur heads

and come to some peer-reviewed conclusion

galletti, my mushroom expert tells me 

porcini

polipori

boleti

yes, nice, nice

but what I really want is this one—

skinny

little flecks of red

and sporting the head of a proudly circumcised penis

I don’t know this one, he says,

Leave it.

but it’s handsome and not like the others and we have so much galletti already and I like it—

all mushrooms you can eat, he says (all serious-like),

but some you can only eat once.

so I pocket my special mushroom

because what he doesn’t know is that later in my room

where it is dark and I am stripped down to my socks and underwear 

who will stop me

from taking a little nibble

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Renny Gong is in his fourth year at Columbia University. His work has appeared in The Adroit Journal, Split Lip Magazine, Longleaf Review, and elsewhere. He loves to cook a gumbo, which is hearty stew popular in the U.S. state of Louisiana.

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image: Emily Bottomley