The Millennial Pedestrian

Snapper

The diners at the Boathouse restaurant
put down their forks, shocked
by this primeval visitor.
With depthless gaze it looks about,
legs slowly stirring
the thick rich soup it lives in.

A gaily-colored turtle from an East Side school’s
terrarium might not surprise us
like this dire ellipse. It
draws the blackness of the pond
into its mossy shell, condensing finally
in onyx eyes that gleam with
adamant non-acknowledgement of us.

Once we knew the planet rested
on a giant turtle’s back. The danger’s obvious:
at any moment, the turtle could silently slip back
into time’s eternal stream
and drown us all.
Or does the turtle tell us
we are deathless, fated to be cased
in armor, to swim until we find you –
uncomprehending turtle spawn
tossing bread crumbs in our pond.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 8th, 2006.
It's part of the New Poems category.
Feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of the page.
You can be alerted via RSS when a comment on this post is made.
You can get an email when a new piece of writing is added to the site.