Issue 16
Road
Mary Rose-Webster
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Snapping Turtle
You are like an old crone from storybooks with your long, sallow nails. You
are like a stranger from some primeval world. As we approach you pivot your
powerful body with surprising speed to challenge us; you look out from under
your carapace and lock your yellow bead-like eyes on ours.
Back in the car, our barking dogs can't fathom our delay. They are anxious to be racing through the woods on this warm April afternoon, chasing squirrels and the scent of deer. Are you also on your way to Hawkin's Pond?
Like flagmen at a road construction site, we slow the traffic down. A man
astride a clamorous ATV pulls up beside us.
"She's a snapper for sure," he says. "She must have survived for twenty
years, judging by the size of her."
We watch him lift you gingerly with his black-gloved hands. You arch your
neck and hiss at him, opening your mouth to reveal a moist, pink cavern.
As he sets you down by the side of the road among fiddleheads and Dutchman's
britches, we think we see something like gratitude in your eyes. Or are we
simply mistaking it for our own?
~Mary Rose-Webster
Mary Rose-Webster writes creative non-fiction. Her essay Reframing My
Life was recently published in a collection entitled Herspace: Women, Writing,
and Solitude. Email.
© 2004 by Mary Rose-Webster. All Rights Reserved.
© Copyright 2004 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.