Legend -- by File

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Imagine a forest the size of France, said I,
Mushrooms the size of Peter’s hands,
Tapping on the paper, somewhere over there

In Russia, September’s an auspicious month
For mushroom hunting, but
France is a big country

Can you see a line there? asked I,
She looked in vain at the bone white sheet,
We crossed that line, there were signs of mushrooms
Ahead, so that’s where we went

That’s when our maps became like that one
Open, pointless
We realized they were only ever in our heads

We used to pride ourselves on our maps
That this black brook ran into that,
That the burnt tree pointed charred fingers

About poisonous growths and
How to smell wolves

Our useless truths didn’t apply there
Was no scale, no legend, no relief
Nor trail nor appetite between those trees

Imagine a forest older than Russia, or France
Hollow somber shivers in the key of decay
Powdery gases that dance lazily

Under layers of loosely woven shrouds
Time drools, hours ooze over thorns, through moss
Secret barbed green dieing space

In that place
Time is dappled flat

Imagine a long shadow cast
Ironed, eked out
To a fetid air, thick dark first night

I can’t tell you what we feared we heard
Not human hearts, we remembered things
We’d never seen, flavours

That festered in our mouths to a fungal morning
There was no dawn, as such, no water
As pale bacteria

Walking in dread green circles,
Fatal certainty,
Back, to a night like the last again

Strangeness passed, we got sort of used to it and lost again
Doing what we should, seeing where the sun went, lighting fires
Finding food, etching the legend in an acid bath

When they found us we’d been gone for a week, said they
A week!
An x-ray

Imagine a forest the size of France, said I,
With mushrooms the size of Peters hands,
Tapping on the paper, somewhere, nowhere

She looked hard at the bone white sheet, again
As we had.

I lifted it free.
A dead map’s best
Left

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