Three poems by April Michelle Bratten

Three poems
by April Michelle Bratten

I Have Been Told

I wear gauges for eyes to
twist my realm up young
and fresh selfish
tendencies of just a woman.

I must be made of metal
I have been told
over and
again
but my breasts (I do believe
are flesh) are bloated
dragging behind me
on the ground like ant hills.

I think they are alive.

You can never understand (so
I have been told) how those things
will stick to you
like something
quite sticky stirred heavily
and caked on like batter.

I walk like a mummy in this.

And maybe I am a mummy
that is of the never
knowing
motherly love
filling my breasts
with hair spiraling
out from my vagina
like daisies
and never knowing
the red rocket
shoot through veins
so cold
and without child.

I hold the babies out
like pieces and bits
of thin papers
on string
away from my body
like malice.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Love is a Great Cadaver

love
is a great cadaver
how it just lies there
dead

scratch it
scratch it
scratch it
find ways to
craft it
like a tried on sweet thing
for head

prod it open now
swollen now
with every finger of your hand now

blanch it
blanch blanch
use your elbows now
jab it
like cut dry bread
melt like new breath

face it
like a test
like a mirror
like a heart
heart heart
until all skin is sprung
back like curtain
and it all is open

it will
still be there dead.

++++++++++++++++++++

Garden Juicy

My breasts are two fat mausoleums,
two swollen tombstones
avoiding your open death mouth.

They are consumed with brain and thought
when they only want to be made of simple earth,
to hover above sweet dirt.

I am left alone to garden them,
melons, great pumpkins for ground,
but I am no vegetable!

I am tasty fruit, right,
only a few bites
have been taken from me.

I am deep devil center of things,
the human chest of things,
hands fooling all around me,
tooling, spending, and saving that precious soil.

I will demonize it all with my woman parts,
strong root, and strong forces shoveled up,
with mud support.

Author bio:

April Michelle Bratten is a writer from North Dakota. She will be featured in upcoming issues of Leaf Garden Press and The Poetry Warrior, among others. She is the co-editor of Up the Staircase (www.upthestaircase.org).