Janice Hale-Hobby

TURTLE

Here is the turtle I found, you offer.
Be careful, he snaps.
Suddenly, I am a child again,
alone in Grandpa's weathered boat,
singing to sunfish off a sodden pier
and battling huge, flecked oars
through hissing ribbons of lakeweed,
lured toward Turtle Island,
hook, line, and sinker.
Where my parents once bathed as newlyweds,
I skirt the looming ribs of a shipwreck
swaying off shore and glide giddy
to a beachhead of sun-dancing pebbles...
Patterns on the shell of a turtle
still sooth my summer soul
as in your hands,
memories manifest.