Sample Poems by Martha Carlson-Bradley
At the Falls
Above the current
fed by summer storms
the ledge and boulders
are lush in miniature:
as ribbons of weed
shimmy, submerged,
out from the stone
bursts a trumpet of lichen.
Translucent ferns
bruise beneath our feet.
*
This heart-shaped leaf
I almost recognize, stepping clear:
green against black earth
it flares
like light.
*
I could come back with guidebooks,
my focus best at close range--
and trace for days, for weeks,
the names that grow here,
private--wordless among themselves--
the water so loud we're forced to shout.
Surface Tension
Clear as tea, the river
ferries floating leaves--
birch and alder, ash--
as spangles of October sunlight
burn, blinding:
in shade
one yellow maple leaf
glides vertically
beneath the surface, curved
like a hand at rest--
a gesture not sustainable
in air:
my eyes adjust
and here--here too--
hundreds pass, whole cities
dimmed beneath water,
swift as if some purpose
leads them east.
Passage of Months
False solomon's seal
breaks out in berries--strangely beige,
like gobbets of human,
tight-skinned,
Caucasian--
not like fingers,
not buds that could turn
in someone else's imagination
into people. The undergrowth
is not endowed with spirit
so much as indistinguishable parts--
as body fragments swell,
firm, unbruisable
till they ripen:
bloody: fruit.
*
Like a tissue sample trapped
in stone, fibers of mineral
suffuse this slab of agate
to lie, translucent, in my hand:
a cross section of chorion--
those membranes exuded,
like hair, across the amniotic sac--
the planet as it tilts
spinning flesh.
*
Small and cool, the bleeding heart
splits its pointed tip,
exposing her winged phallus--
rigid from base to head:
again and again
down the stem's length
bloom the emblems I planted
for you, dead in the womb--
boy girl tenderness lust
bloodless here, perennial.