[The mosses aren’t helpless] excerpted from Without Them I Am Still A Mother
the mosses aren’t helpless / to make a home for water / they become bisexual / mosses were made for the boundary layer / species have evolved / without gender / without a male in sight / D. scoparium / D. polysetum / D. flagellare / the right mate / passes over the surface like a rock / a warm, moist habitat / interacts in interesting ways with what it touches / heaven knows there are plenty of us / suspended in drought-sleep / a dry moss is incapable of growth / the good news is that there will be offspring / D. montaum / D. fulvum/ D. undulatum / heaven knows there are plenty of us already¹
¹Collaged language from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses.
Sarah Sgro is a Pushcart nominated poet living in Oxford, Mississippi. Currently, she serves as Poetry Editor for the Yalobusha Review, co-hosts the Broken English Reading Series, and reads poetry submissions for Muzzle. She is from New York and previously worked as an editorial assistant for Guernica. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in DREGINALD, Cloud Rodeo, Tagvverk, Muzzle, TYPO, glitterMOB, Deluge and other journals.
