Katharine Tyndall

Lichen Dating

My summertime body, red-blighted with lichen,
The girl who had always delighted in lichen.

Here 4 a symbiont, wanna live in me?
Together, we’ll grow a blush of bright lichen,

I’ll build us a cell if you’ll photosynthesize,
Release ur spores onto my body like lichen.

Mutualism doesn’t mean I like it,
Invade me like you’re a parasite lichen.

Kept going for fire signs, liking to suffer,
Growing on bare rock, spotted white lichen.

You hated my art but liked being inside me,
Erotic, neurotic, sclerotic like lichen.

Take my circumference and I’ll give you my age,
Date me at my widest, annulate lichen,

Kate, can you stop growing where you’re not wanted?
How you cling to that surface, uncontrite lichen.

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Katharine Tyndall is a writer, artist and researcher based in Berlin. Her work deals with the natural world, science-fiction, and themes of embodiment and disability. Most recently, her writing can be found in Fatal Flaw, Plant Magic Magazine, and Odious Rot.