Kelp – a poem by Florence Murry

KELP
 
They drift in pods
on water petal to petal
each a floating skin.
 
Flowered brown encrustations
they move side to side.
Glistened blades
 
Stalk by stalk they branch
separate directions. They thrive in salt
life support seaweed used for iodine.
 
So little we see on top
beneath lies tangled webs
layer upon layer
 
a mangled helix on a serpent’s head,
a crammed, yarn skein.
Tight-twined sphere
 
like our riddled mortal enigma we gnash
against star charted rock,
Laminariales—imagine snare. 

Florence Murry’s poetry has appeared Stoneboat, Mainstreet Rag, Southern California Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, earlier in The Black Buzzard Review (Florence Bohl) and elsewhere. She is currently working on a poetry manuscript called Last Run Before Sunset.