Twice Alive (excerpt)

mycobiont just beginning to enwrapphotobiont each to becomesomething else its own life and acontested mutuality twice alivealgal cells swaddled in clusters

you take a 3-lens jeweler's loupe to inspect the holdfastof the umbilicate lichens then the rock tripe lichensthen the Amitaba Buddha mushroom, cambric in color,swarming with a kind of mite that has no anusthen the delicious chanterelles called Trumpets of Death

I crush oak moss between finger and thumbfor its sweet perfume persistent onyour skin when I touch your throat so slowto evaporate the memory of seeingsunburst lichen on the sandstone cliff

but if herbivores eat wolf lichen theydie and if carnivores eat it they diewrithing in pain with the exception of miceit is rarely possible to tellif lichen is dead or alive