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Tricyclist and a Turtle

By Molly McQuade Molly McQuade

Minnesota

snapping turtles

clutched by little cities

are wet busts of moonstone

wreathed in scum,

the gray self sugared,

half a lot

of granite

phlegm stopped

upon a chaise longue,

that incoming

pod of him

dunked,

thorny hooves aswim.

Lichen licked him,

then he quivered

in the stem,

and didactic stoicism stitched

him tight with

a neat twine.

Even when

tapped on the back

by a barefoot tricyclist

with a bulging wheaten midriff,

he does not respond

except that

a flagellant

paddling worm

nested in

the necropolis

of his nape twists

in disgust

under the skin,

keeping all the grim social hate

safe

in him.

Source: Poetry (August 2004).

Biography

Molly McQuade is writing a letter to Edgar Lee Masters as part of her job as a columnist for the American Library Association. Her books include Barbarism, a collection of her poetry; Stealing Glimpses, a collection of her essays about poetry; and By Herself, an edited anthology of essays about poetry by contemporary women poets.

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