In weirdly tinted daylight

I wade into a surging whirlpool

of spring green flesh

It frightens me this May gush

of plant life with its rampaging fertility

this concupiscent chaos

It’s as if every being on earth

(everything in sight at least

shrubs, trees, and grasses

perennials and annuals alike)

is giving birth everywhere at once

All the flora in wood and meadow

leaf-mold floor to sagging canopy

is ripening and dropping offspring

spontaneously

simultaneously

promiscuously

Fauna too it seems

(voles and a million mice

snakes, lizards, and a colorful

kaleidoscope of newts, efts, salamanders

insects and arachnids uncountable

multitudinous marsupials

and birds, god, the birds!)

Not just every female

but every male too

not just from genitalia

and not just from every orifice

but from every surface

like Zeus from every brow and limb

from every nonbinary joint and pore

plump baby growths sprouting

(some almost fully grown)

with fleshy edible green fingers

uncountable naked green toes

and rainbow-colored roots and bows

on bald uncauled fontenelles

on bronze helmets and leather shields

sucking sustenance from soil and air

sucking milk from sun and stone

sucking nectar from mortal flesh

every organ pouring forth

new life in an orgy

of procreation

If you look closely

you can almost see the new

leaves unfold in slow motion

minute by abandoned minute

wet pistils spraying fragrance

seductive petals parting heat

that intubates and incubates

new buds exploding

pollen filling asthmatic air

blizzards of blonde gnats

white bats copulating everywhere

Everyone is worshipping the new

growth clogging the view

setting up ad hoc

altars of orgasm

But to me this moist mushrooming

this bright burgeoning is too frantic

too antic and it’s frightening

In my flashlight beam

the night forest breathes aloud

a garish peony seems to lunge at me

great horned owls mock me

and lesser creatures cackle in the dark.

I find a tick

stowed away

in my groin

I pluck it out

draw blood

and the swollen

crater itches

for days.