The black mushrooms rose after the storms
along the road in moss and clover,
as ink, as overcast night sky, as the dog
that ran over them without a care. The forest had uncurved
emerald overnight, too many raw shapes
to be gemstones anymore, and that was fine in the girl’s mind,
as she preferred a lighter green, what her mother
would call spring. The black absorbed all colors, even blue,
the same as the trunks in the woods
still wet from five inches of rain in less than a day,
and four some days before, and four before.
That kind of spring came with strong winds to say
things are changing. Men said maybe
but not because of industry,
and the emeralds moved back again to what gave rise to them before
so that crowns in museums found themselves empty, no alarms
sounding to beryl, chromium, vanadium
returned to schist or gneiss with magma.
Necklaces in jewel boxes and rings
unfilled to rock and cold liquid stone. The girl
wore a black dress, as did her mother, setting
spring on their fingers, in their ears, at their throat.
Angie Macri is the author of Underwater Panther (Southeast Missouri State University), winner of the Cowles Poetry Book Prize, and Fear Nothing of the Future or the Past (Finishing Line). Her recent work appears in The Journal, Quiddity, and The Southern Review. An Arkansas Arts Council fellow, she lives in Hot Springs. Find her online at angiemacri.wordpress.com