Mushroom Hunter Aphorisms
Jeffrey H. MacLachlan
Soviet safety poster, 1959
Fly agaric makes sunny orange broth that irrigates lazy peasants.
A young death cap emerges from a universal veil fastened to bare roots. Its bourgeois prey was czarina liver. When a Soviet tree roams, death caps enshroud as stowaways. They visualize being clasped by capitalist molars.
False morels are nominally edible. Squeeze stems to appliqué bast shoes with unraveled brain.
Mushrooms constellate when meadows swell with muddy rain. In the taiga haze, blue clusters bracelet steinheilite slices like Pisces' Circlet. Your echoed soliloquy hushes while foraging a vibrant fungus. You both meditate on buried remains.
Parasols should drip whipped egg hackles and be fried like pink chicken. Condition nostrils not to recognize the difference.
Resourceful chefs consider polypores a forest treasure. Mix with homemade mayonnaise and a vodka toast after successful harvests.
Morel means spring's arrived. Fern flower salad has a socialist crunch if collectivized effectively.
Common puffballs rot like pappy's tobacco when he becomes a family burden. Never spoil the surprise.
Jeffrey H. MacLachlan also has recent work in New Ohio Review, The Minnesota Review, The Meadow, among others. He is a Senior Lecturer literature at Georgia College & State University.