Death Cap

Death Cap

I am the old lady 

asked along to a brewery

to distract the child,

to nurse a half pint of
vaunted yet unwished for
ale, to be ignored

except when family 

points me to a chair.

I take in the crowd 

queued for another draft,

clustered around barrels

of bursty talk, of laughs.

The child & I 

discover nothing here

beyond noise & large bodies

in black clothing,

a barmaid’s tattooed 

arms & blued hair.

Then a table half empty,

a couple willing to share,

but first we marvel 

at two large mushrooms

someone’s left there,

not witches butter, 

not turkey tail

nor red-belted conk — 

names the child suggests

& stoutly denies

before switching focus

to morphological detail —

“This,” she says, “is the stalk.”

For the pocked crown

I posit cap, then balked,

we google, for the ring —

none — then gills,

mycelium, volva.

These must be death cap, we surmise.

Some mushrooms 

push straight up through soil,

she says, wonder 
blazing from her eyes.