Skin
A tiny sip of lichen slips
through skin
and creeps slow
towards her wrist.
Algae emerge
from the purlicue
web,
epidermis writhes
into green
between the index and the next finger.
Moss extends over
the backs of her hands,
a soft velvet
caress
across her desiccated skin.
Anchored by
rhizoids
this slithering
layer
seeps out through pores,
spreads like
verdigris –
a tight-fitting
glove.
Around hair roots
cerotodon begins,
small and tight,
and soon she is
crowned
with a mass of fire –
red and fertile in
spots of light;
orange embers glow
under the forest canopy.
Liverwort breeds in the fossae above her clavicle
and tracks towards
marchantia in the jugular notch.
Below, cladonia
sprout their tiny
umbrella organs across her cleavage.
Mood moss, wispy
while dry
is verdant and
lush when moist
between her legs.
Spores spread.
She flourishes.
Her nails gleam
with gloss from the
thorax of bluebottle.
Her black eyes
glisten, reflect the green sheen
of a magpie’s nape.
Wet leaves around
her grow cold,
slick in the shade. An odour of rot
from rank weeds touches
the ends
of her olfactory
nerves.
Her mouth waters.
She ripens
out of the Earth
as something else.
www.threedropspoetry.co.uk
*Delighted that Three Drops Press has nominated this poem for a Pushcart Award.
http://www.pushcartprize.com/
