Planting sang

Sing a song of sang, that human root: wrinkled homunculus growing slow as thought. Even the seeds take twenty months to sprout, stones that finish growing in the ground as if traveling through the interminable gut of some great beast that vanished in the Pleistocene. Sing a song of burying in haste, the berries’ flesh a tempting prize for mold. So if picked on a morning in early September, nestled into a plastic vial & sent by overnight mail, you must plant them as soon as they arrive — don’t put it off till after supper.

Choose each resting-place with care, moving slowly through the woods & stopping often. Pretend you’re burying a grandparent, piece by piece. Make a hole with your index finger no deeper than the second knuckle, drop the blood-colored berry in & cover it up. Pray for uninterrupted sleep, & an end to sleep. Let your stomach rumble, soft & low.