Dispatches From the Mushroom Kingdom, Noel Pabillo Mariano
After forty days living
in the darkness
of your death I couldn’t
recall my name, the faces of
friends and family,
nor even how to feed
myself. Now I stand hungry
in front of my refrigerator,
trying to figure out why
there’s soy milk in the crisper,
why these cookies are sugared
with salt.
-- Save Point, from Dispatches From the Mushroom Kingdom
About Noel Pabillo Mariano
Noel Pabillo Mariano has poems published in Connotation Press, Redactions, Silverado Quarterly Review, & elsewhere. Their work has been anthologized in Kuwento for Lost Things (Carayan Press) and Here is a Pen (Achiote Press). An avid gamer, storyteller, teacher, and community arts activist, they worked as the assistant producer for The Moth: storySLAM in Milwaukee before their current position as the assistant director of LGBTQA+ Services at West Chester University.
