Poetry Magazine
Song-Riddle: Asian Box Turtle
Questions for a zoologist
starting with anatomy
concluding with love:
Is a turtle’s skin loaned?
True or false: weight of his shell
is lighter
than the light of drums.
What is the under-shell
and is it tough as a mangrove?
Can he see through his shell-box?
Can he see out the rear
to this sea of ours?
Does he exist in the order of things?
How does life begin, when does it end
and is that good or evil?
Yellow margin over a cuttlebone,
domed carapace
is it a lonely world
of sow bugs, cutworms, and God?
Source: Poetry (April 2012).
Biography
Karen An-hwei Lee is the author of Phyla of Joy (Tupelo Press, 2012), Ardor (Tupelo Press, 2008) and In Medias Res (Sarabande Books, 2004). She lives and teaches in southern California, where she is a novice harpist.
Poems by Karen An-hwei Lee
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Nature, Animals, Religion, The Spiritual
POET’S REGION U.S., Western
Poetic Terms Free Verse
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