When a turtle weeps, as it does to shed
excess salt, does it plod
through an ancient memory of mourning,
ponder motives
for the geometric horned shell—must it
forage for the snails and grasses
of proto pain or is the present
heaviness enough?
When the turtle’s tears blot its bony jaw
does the prehistoric heart remember
grief, or does it lose its way
through murky tangles of kelp, perplexed,
like that time after diving down
thirteen feet into a pool you became dizzy,
lost your orientation, didn’t know
which way air, which way water—
which could have killed you;
which set off a series of missed signals
& tests & brain scans &
anxiety & damage done to the nerves
responsible for hearing—
& this the best possible diagnosis—
& is it our lot, to drag the underbelly
across serrated woe at the ocean’s edge?
Does the turtle retract into the deep green
cave of its contemplation to brandish
an impenetrable shield to the world or to reset
its slow wisdom & warrior stance &
did the deity stack hexagons on the carapace
as a mark of favor or encumbrance?
When a turtle cries, does it feel the weight
of the relentless pile-on of sheer existence,
crushing, does it feel dazed to discover,
after diving,
that it, too, can drown?
–
Laura Reece Hogan is the author of Butterfly Nebula (Backwaters, University of Nebraska Press), winner of the Backwaters Prize in Poetry, Litany of Flights (Paraclete), winner of the Paraclete Poetry Prize, the chapbook O Garden-Dweller (Finishing Line), and the nonfiction I Live, No Longer I (Wipf & Stock).