Mycelium Under the Parking Lot

At dawn, the parking lot exhales steam, and through one cracked seam in the asphalt a pale fist of mushrooms opens, holding the night's rain like silver coins.

Under our errands, a white alphabet travels, threading roots, bottle glass, old gum wrappers; the earth writes messages in hyphae, quiet as breath on a sleeping child's neck.

I kneel with grocery bags bruising my wrists and smell wet iron, pine, and diesel; a crow tilts its head, black metronome, keeping time for this soft uprising.

By noon the caps are already dimming, paper lanterns folding back into loam. Still, all day I walk more gently, as if streets were skin and listening.