Weight of the World

"Some Turtles are Safer Than Others"
Digital collage with photograph & art by Amy Alexander
Weight of the World
by Amy Alexander
When the turtle bore the world on its back,
only the rock could break it.
We were slow, then.
The rock was slower,
collapsing into gravity,
its always lover,
so the turtle was whole
over many springs,
laying down the shell circles,
telling stories to its children,
children of mud,
distant cousins of rocks,
crawling, red-eared,
out of muck,
that was how it was
for many years.
Karl Benz’s tri-car was slow, too,
made for pleasure,
but faster than horses,
then measured by them,
their bodies piled up
and turned to power,
more and more matted sorrels,
sinews, sodden,
pelvises of women stacked
all the way to Talladega,
to turtles cracked by the millions
on their mating walks in spring
and I am bothered by this
in a way most people find to be tedious,
too sensitive,
they whisper,
too much watching
the side of the road.
In another time,
they would bleed me
to force out the demons
or burn me at the stake.
At the automobile lot
for a used car,
a baby in my belly,
unwed,
I couldn’t find the love for speed
and asked my father to choose one for me.
When I’d told him I was expecting,
he looked at me like a broken woman,
and I felt my back snap,
felt the world on me,
then signed the papers
not knowing that a week later,
I would wake up in a pool of red
and remember how many turtles I couldn’t save.
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Amy Alexander is a poet, visual artist, and homeschooling mother living in Baton Rouge, close to the mighty Mississippi. Her poetry and/or artwork has appeared in The Coil, Cease Cows, Mooky Chick, The Remembered Arts, The RKVRY Quarterly Literary Journal, Mojave Heart Review and many more wonderful journals.