Marjorie Maddox
Broken Shell on Rural Road
222 miles from the ocean,
it’s not King Conch or Clam,
Cowrie or Cockle, but turtle—
Eastern Painted or Spotted?
I’m not the one to say—but cracked,
no doubt, by pick-up truck or motorcycle, a direct hit—
though sledge hammer or golf club would do it,
it’s that precise if not premeditated—
the neck untouched, stretched out and arced,
looking for someplace to go, some way to scream
its duck-and-pig screech coming from deep inside
the armored and green just out for a stroll
on a sunny Election Day in Virginia,
no reason to look both ways before crossing
on this unpatrolled barely paved road
across a cow pasture and up to a center
for the arts, where I am writing now
about amphibian intestines flattened
against asphalt and stray stones,
flies gathering even as I type.
Marjorie Maddox is the author of Wives’ Tales (Seven Kitchens Press, 2017); True, False, None of the Above (Cascade Books, 2016); Local News from Someplace Else (Wipf & Stock, 2013); Weeknights at the Cathedral (WordTech, 2006); Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (WordTech, 2004); Perpendicular As I (Sandstone Publishing, 1994); and several other poetry collections. She lives in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and is a professor of English and creative writing at Lock Haven University. More at marjoriemaddox.com.
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