THE MOCK TURTLE: SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL

by Ed Shacklee

Famed for toxic prattle and gelatinous physique,
combining theft with battle, it assails the poor and weak
while herding mulish cattle with its games of hide and seek.

Exhibiting surprise if folk decry its sly venality,
it mocks with blatant lies. Its crooked, looking glass morality
enables wolves’ disguise of greed with sheepskins of frugality.

Partly turtle, partly snake, a spineless omnivore,
the terror of Kentucky, this dystopian dinosaur
has lined its nest with feathers but is always plucking more,

and creeps through halls of power like a sleepy Southern breeze.
Its purse-lipped, goggled glower bringing cowards to their knees,
it stalks a fatal hour or a moment it can seize.

But piles of cash are paper thin and make for flimsy armor,
and miles of rural roads can never daunt the brave reformer,
and while the trail has gotten cold, I’m told it’s getting warmer;

for babies vilely kissed in past campaigns will not forget
the rabies it has spread, or tears we’ve shed—which are still wet—
and maybe time will tell us why the Russians play roulette.

Resist, my heart! and choose, so there may be a morning when you
wake to light a fuse and then demand a change of venue—
that longed for, lucid day when turtle soup is on the menu.


Ed Shacklee is a public defender who lives on a boat in the Potomac River. His first collection, The Blind Loon: A Bestiary, was published by Able Muse Press in 2017.

CHIP IN TO SUPPORT AMY McGrath

DARK OF THE MOON, HEAT OF THE SUN

by Pepper Trail

“One hundred percent girls,” whispered the biologist, crawling next to the pregnant reptile. “This nest will be 100 percent girls.” As the earth gets hotter, turtle hatchlings worldwide are expected to skew dangerously female, scientists predict, making the animals an unwitting gauge for the warming climate. —The Washington Post, October 22, 2019. Photo: A marine biologist helps a newborn sea turtle reach the sea on Cape Verde’s Boa Vista island. Credit: Danielle Paquette via The Washington Post.

In the dark sea, a greater darkness
An absence of starlight, moving
Then on the wet sand, a stone

Stone into turtle, with gathering of breath
And the climb begins, pull and drag
Against all the weight of earth

Far up the beach, with pause for gasp
The turtle curves wings
Into mittened hands, and digs

For this warmth of nest, the ocean shed
This gush of eggs into the place prepared
Hidden among the grains of sand

Then the lurch, the thrash
The torn-up ground, last concealment
Before the run toward home

At the first break of wave
She lifts head, trailing earthly tears
Rests, breathes full, and flies free

So it has been, the mothers forever
Returning to their mothers’ beach
The fathers waiting in the fathers’ surf

But now, the warmth too warm
The nests send only girls into the sea
Until fathers can be found no more

For long barren years, turtles will swim
Far from the beckoning useless land
Bearing eggs for no generation, the last


Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

PROMETHEUS' OFFERING

by Anne Graue

A woman found an unusual reptile near her home in Hudson, Maine this week - a two-headed baby snapping turtle. Kathleen Talbot said she went to watch turtle hatchlings cross the road to make sure they each arrived at the other side safely. She noticed one of the turtles had been left behind. "I thought he had two feet in the front. I thought he was deformed. I didn't realize it was two heads until I got him home and washed him. Then he came to life-- and was just starving," she said. She has named the turtle Frank and Stein. Talbot said she doesn't plan to have the dynamic duo as a pet, but does want to make sure Frank and Stein survives. --Kacie Yearout, WLBZ September 25, 2014 Image source: NEWS CENTER

Born as if he knew
there would be difficulty
in deciding the path to take
and needed help
in choosing the way to go
and thus was created

a new perspective a new
argument, modern,
attached to one turtle body
inside a shell protecting

all but his two brains working
against and adjacent
to the matter of his choice.

Or perhaps he didn't know
and this fluke of snapping
turtle DNA would haunt him
throughout his days

of living in a push
and pull world weaker
from having to decide

on the simplest things
which leaf is tastier
which path is greener
which road is safer

which mind to sacrifice.


Anne Graue lives, writes, and teaches writing in New York's Hudson Valley. Her poems have appeared in Compass Rose, Ginosko Literary Journal, The New Verse News, and The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly.