[Matt Q]

Absorption

Before the fungus killed me
I spent a long time in the woods
On all fours with my tail in the air
Practising moving like a fox
Listening to the crunch of dead leaves
And climbing only those trees
That would have me

No one warned me about the fungus
No one warns you about things like that
And so I didn’t see it coming
Almost all of it was hidden underground
Branching chains of memory
Communing with itself
Humming

There are worse ways to go
Lonelier ways
I became part of a song
Woven into the tangled pathways
Of a woodland saga
With no heroes or monsters
I still wish I had become a fox

But no one ever gets their first choice
And this too is transformation

.