DEAD TURTLE ON BRANCH POND ROAD
By M. Kelly Lombardi
Blood still wet,
eyes glazed, and
attracting tiny insects,
the large snapper,
throat slit,
is dead on the side
of the dirt road.
A fisherman,
sportsman,
who owns expensive
property on the lake
has used his antler-handled
gutting knife on it
because it eats fish.
As I gather it
up, to at least
let its corpse go home,
I wonder
if the fisherman would rather
train the snappers
to eat people.
And if she was able
to deposit her eggs
before he killed her.
