Sharon Hashimoto

Mushroom Hunting Elegy

No dripping rain tickles trails inside the arms
of our Gore-Tex jackets, knuckles growing frosted
as rounded stones, clutching burlap bags

that once held Calrose rice. No more boots
sliding on ferns and underbrush, the exhale of breath
rising in the fog and scent of pine needles. In our separate

clouds of sweat and bruises, we’d straddle nurse logs,
mistake lichen or dead white leaves for buds
and blooms, the caps of mushrooms peeking up 

past the moss: chunky, thickset, squat. How we’d yell,
“found one!” Our voices boomed like the rifle shots
we’d sometimes hear in the overlapping deer season, 

glad for the orange shirt, knit cap, or scarf we’d wear.
We wanted to flag our full bags like white-tailed deer—
their hind legs driving into the ground. Logging roads 

widened and wove through wooded acres back
to the low riding Chevrolet where we’d spread our bounty
on the hood. The woods are gone now—Harstine Island, Shelton—

clear-cut for new construction homes on cul-de-sacs.
Now there’s no fried chicken lunch or hot tea. Waste wood
cut low to the ground in this slash, there’s no road left. 

Back to Issue XV…