POEM: Turtle Island Blues

Turtle Island Blues

I saw a dead turtle on the road and I thought of you
it would have had no chance at all to escape
the oncoming headlights

it was crushed, legs outstretched like a penitent
released from this mortal coil by the steel-sprung
wheels of a family SUV filled with laughing children

the fragments of its fragile shell scattered on the asphalt
muscles and tendons and veins and arteries
splayed on the road like a Jackson Pollock painting

I remember being in the headlights myself not long ago
even though it was a scorching July afternoon
and there wasn’t a car as far as the eye could see

but there you were anyway, barreling down on me
leaving me beside the highway, bleeding and gasping
for a last breath of unseasonably warm air

1 October 2012
Auburn, AL