Prompted, hideously.

[A prompt from Niina's blog, to use the term "charred pancake cup" in a poem. Turns out it's a fungus, a cousin to all the fungi named in this poem.]

Saint Anthony’s Fire

As if the yeast were outraged

by my Natural Ice, my Wonder

Bread, the white truffles

bored by my ritual indulgences.

As if the lichens refused to show

me the way. As if the penicillin

knew I was never worth saving.

The little wineskins let loose

upon the rye fields, put witchcraft

in my mind and a shimmer at the edge

of seeing. This is how I saw

them, little flesh-touch dreams

growing in the damp, so clearly:

the black felt cup, the winter urn, 

the devil’s cigar. The charred

pancake cup, the fractal Venetian lace

of carbon over cheery golden batter. 

Ergotic, nature-drunk I named it

for the mistake every cook makes, heard

some nonexistent uncle remind, Marriages

are like pancakes—you have to throw out

the first couple before you get it right.