Prelapsarian Lichen

		     Ho Hum 		          Ho Hum

Across the tundra, a scientist sings 
	   teleology.
With tweezers and sleeve, he tools 
	   the Flora/Fauna twosome. 

What say we? Lies!
Lichen’s not one thing, like a burning bush
				              or a fruit tree.
Pity, really.
No underground laborat’ry
shall prove we’re just a fungus. It’s not among us.
	    We’re no algae in abundance.
	    We’re no Shropshire bacterial dunces.

Faeries named 
			                	Elf Ear 		               	Pixie Foam
				                   	  Gnome Fingers 			     Dragon Bone
and our pendular bodies
that defy lovely
						                      Black Eye Stye         Pimpled Kidney
	    Lobed Bumple		Blistered Jelly
						                               		  Warty Beard 		  Freckled Belly
		       Bare-bottom Spore		     Ruptured Acne

We grow awry and inedibly over apocalyptic scree—
       paint flakes, hairball crottles, vulval fringe along granite, lipstick crustaceans in transit.

							                              Our symbiotic color
							                              destined for an ancestor blanket
							                                       homing in ammonia
							                              saddening an afternoon.
A queer existence—loose on the ground
cast out of the heavens.
	     Or unattached 
	           a 
	             kite 
	           caught 
	             in a 
		        branch

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