Applying Toxic Mushrooms

In a room draped in royal blue

a consultant advises applying

toxic mushrooms to problems

office politics can’t solve.

The room shimmers like tissue. 

I’m planning a dinner party

for you and your feral husband.

After brandy and thick cigars

I’ll propose you elope with me

to the nearest rain forest, leaving

your husband shuffling papers

in his dusty office where stainless 

steel instruments glower and books

too thick to grip with his tiny hands

gloat with insufferable knowledge.

This plan will enrage him, of course.

Exposing his aspirin-sized teeth

he’ll demand an apology;

but I’ll stare until the toxic

mushrooms in his salad attack

his liver and he staggers with pain.

We’ll rush him to the hospital

and assure him of survival,

then taxi to the airport and lose

ourselves together in the world.

What a daydream. The consultant

in the room draped in royal blue

hasn’t mentioned toxic mushrooms,

but flashing his MBA smile

he offers pie charts related

to better use of personnel

to cope with a grim economy.

I made up the rest to impress you,                                   

and would like to share it all

over cups of Earl Grey tea;

but as the consultant’s lecture ends

your blue gaze looks too bottomless

to lure all the way to the tropics,

so I won’t even say hello.

William Doreski