To An Eastern Box Turtle

read by paul stevens

Last month, by chance, while stepping through the lawn
   my foot fell on a boulder—
   your shield. But now you're gone.
Next time I chanced upon you, you were colder.

My guess: as you were about to lay your eggs
   into the shallow hole
   you dug with sturdy legs,
you shuddered from a puzzling thunder roll,

closer and closer, felt your shell being crushed,
   and then the world went blank.
   The soughing wind was hushed.
(A Super Surfer mower is to thank.)

Through rain and heat, your parts vanished like bread
   strewn across the earth
   for sparrows. Ants had fed
on all but your armor and what your life was worth:

a half-a-dozen oval, easily broken,
   flaccid hints of scattered
   sentience that would have woken
to a world where carapaces can be shattered

as easily as a globe becomes a box
   split into smaller cases,
   where turtle, deer, or fox
at end of day does not know where its place is.

You were as brave and bright as summer flowers:
   orange, yellow, black
   before man spoke with powers
that ultimately cracked your ancient back.

It was a Northern Water Snake

read by paul stevens

When I noticed the serpent so still on the side
of the road, I had thought it a cast-off snake hide,
but on closer inspection I saw it had died.

Through a split in its brown and gray skin, buzzing flies
laid white eggs, so their grubs will devour this prize
like some grunts that will stuff greedy maws with home fries

at some greasy spoon after a hard day of toil.
The creature appeared as if ready to coil
by the neighborhood reservoir flashing like foil.

Had it been alert,
would it have been hurt?

Its belly, a yellowish-white embrocation
graced by reddish half moons (an ornate decoration),
had supported the beast in its wet habitation.

Where eyes had once been, gaping apertures eyed
my own eyeballs as though I were foe as I spied,
leading up to it, tire tracks SUV-wide.

Now it is inert,
a starched and trunkless shirt.

It knew less about cars than we do of dark matter,
so didn't foresee that its waist could get flatter,
mashed like a banana sprawled out on a platter.

Soon it will revert
to cool and mossy dirt.

Martin Elster, author of There's a Dog in the Heavens! is also a composer and serves as percussionist for the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. His poems have most recently appeared, or are forthcoming, in The Chimaera, The Flea, 14 by 14, Lucid Rhythms, Thema, Verse Wisconsin, Umbrella, and Yankee Dog.