Chelonian Midwife
It’s tonight.
Not the night before,
or the night before that. Not tomorrow.
She has moved earth for three hours
and she knows. But never looks.
Millions of years of mothers that never looked.
Hind legs and feet sculpting soil wombs,
pushing pebbles unseen, under full moons
and rain and hot nights without a star.
Falling, one
perfect white wet ellipse
of germ and yolk. And ten more,
each turned and moved by webbed feet
reaching through an orifice in a cornfield.
Eleven seeds planted, slowly set with surrogate soil.
Hundreds of minutes, covering, concealing
clutch contained by friable flask,
midnight masterpiece on turtle time.
Mother turns
on swimming legs, walks to
wet places without a look. Chelonian midwife,
I lie in the wake of her tempo. Eggs safe,
small and white in the damp ground, I listen as
she drags her shell against corn,
contemplate my charge, and watch
the morning light slowly seep back into the sky.
Laura T. Heady
