Ode to a Poison Mushroom

Moist and supple as a baby's lung, crushable
Like marzipan, courageous in comfortable
Spurts of nothing but air and dirt and water
Sculpted to nurse, inflated with cunning
To kill. Is your death contagious in a kiss
Lingering on your gently gilled cap?

Once again I will swallow whole the fleshy pad,
The fibrous tendon, and savor the smear of soil
Where you rooted to the soft earth like a happy tumor,
As delicate as a dance with wet feet
Smeeling of sweet wax and peat.

May I praise a fungus as a fruit of dark
Nooks, a shadow harvested crop, a thumb-like
Fugitive disguised among my toes?