i am lost in the undergarden

where glooming gourds grow under mushroom

trees and underbeans wrap around my ribs / scintlings

and rot fiends walk on deep soil, shimmering weeds

coat the grass and it shines the way my bones

scatter themselves in crinkling kelp / where am i? /

my blood sits heavy on the shiverstone and stoneborn

footsteps echo in the depths. the twisty twigs

scratch against the wigglewood trees and i wonder

if i belong here / am i from here? / the gronglegrowths

stir to the east under the dweller’s feet and somehow

a part of me feels whole sitting in the brush stone

under veiled mushrooms. in this place

of darkness, of fungus stems and ditch bulbs

burning bright, i have found the tips of my fingers

and soles of my feet lost to the blisterberries / the guardian

calls / and dungeons i died in long ago.

—After Quek’s dimension