Bestiary for the End Times

 
Bridgeoporus nobilissimus(Cascade Range, US Pacific Northwest)
 
If you were a fruiting mushroom – or
better yet a symbiotic community
of bacteria and yeast – and you knew
 
that your people had been growing
in warm, wet places since long before
the gods had even begun to think
 
that one day there might be
animals to keep them entertained –
would you a) just dry up and blow away
 
when humans made it harsh
and inhospitable for you? Or would you
b) insinuate your hyphae deep into
 
the juicy cells of your host’s tender
winding roots and cling to life?
Well, I know what I would do.