PROSE POEM
TIMOTHY DUFFY
The Turtle and the Geese
What is it to be trapped in a body? Their position is the relevance: the geese at the edge, seeking something at the limit of the frame, their closeness always a surprise. The turtle is patient as history, moored in mud below the path of the geese. When they intersect, the turtle startles the white down, bread-crumbs float in a panic between the crane of the neck and the amphibian eyes below. I have lived for too long, one says, to not know what is worth chasing. Some geese fly away. A small turtle suns itself on a log. They face another rising sun to warm the blood, always with that awareness of time, the body’s longing to dissolve: a crumb between the mud and the stomach. A fight between a small burst of wings and the slow swim of ancient legs.
Tim Duffy is a poet and teacher in Connecticut. His work has recently appeared in trampset, Salt Hill, Pleiades, SoFloPoJo, and elsewhere. He is working on a collection entitled The Rabbit in the Archive.
