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A watercolor painting depicts a family of three, a mother, father, and daughter, helping a turtle that is flipped upside down on the shoulder of a highway. Their light blue car is parked on the side behind them. The daughter, with blonde hair and wearing a yellow shirt, blue shorts, and pink sneakers, squats down to gently touch the turtle. The mother, in a denim shirt, jeans, and sandals, holds a cardboard box, while the father, in a white short-sleeved shirt and jeans, looks on. The parents are wearing sunglasses. The road extends into the distance with a field of corn on the right, under a cloudy sky. Keep likeness to base image
The blue Chevy carried us
across four states
and we stopped for turtles
baking on their backs
beside the highway.
We brought them home—
Timothy.
Green Head.
Jackie.
Three small consolations
during the petless years
while my father was in graduate school.
More interesting than fish,
they opened square-hinged jaws,
velvet tongues drawing
strips of white bread, twisted like worms,
into their deep gullets.
Sometimes we fed them
worms dug up from the backyard.
In the absence of a dog,
we walked our turtles,
lined them along
a crack in the sidewalk,
and bet on who would win.
One by one,
they turned from the race,
trundling into dirt and grass.
Still, we believed
in their purpose
to please us.
After school,
I would pull Jackie’s box
from beneath my bed
and tap her awake—
her neck stretching,
yellow stripes expanding
with the skin,
sleepy films sliding back
from black, knowing eyes.
Then came winter.
They burrowed into the dirt
and pulled up the drawbridges
of their shelled homes.
And we tucked them
under our beds
and let them disappear—
for months we honored the deep.
Then came spring—
and shouts and hoots
as we watched their bodies
slowly throb back to life.
