Culling Season

He picked the morel I was saving—
announced, I found the granny. I wish
he’d left it. Beige, and pitted like tripe.
Last week, we savored eight, sautéed
with ramps and eggs, a crunch like
knucklebone. I’d plucked the yard
of all but one, hoping the sponge-like
fruit would seed the hill. The wizened
Molly Moocher now lies on my counter.
The undulating divots of her blond
craters—mother dimples where I
lose myself. A waning crescent
sets at noon. I liked watching her
bow and lean her head toward earth.

---

Kathryn Weld’s chapbook is Waking Light (Kattywompus Press, 2019). A finalist for both SER’s Gearhardt Poetry Award and The Bellevue Literary Review’s Jan and Marica Vilcek Award her work has also recently appeared in The Cortland Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Blueline, The Midwest Quarterly, and more. Her prose appears in The American Book Review, Connotations Press, The Critical Flame, and elsewhere. She is professor of mathematics at Manhattan College.