Flying Tortoise

By on Sep 21, 2014 in Poetry

flying_tortoise

My son can tell turtle from tortoise
and this one’s the latter,
breast-stroking half-webbed arms through the air while
sailing forward, held in small hands

that carry the critter like a messy hamburger
(fingers on the underside, thumbs on hexagons,
elbows angled). The tortoise’s tough reptilian arms
curve, sweep and retract, dry-swimming

as we airlift him from parking lot to forest.
We laugh at the audacity of his black bullet head
which he stretches out front like a curious tourist.
“He likes me,” says Felix,
setting him carefully down in a puddle.
“Animals always like me.”

 

 

About

Sarah Carleton writes, edits, plays music and home-schools her son in Tampa, Florida. Her poems have appeared in Houseboat, Burning Word Literary Journal, Avatar Review, Poetry Quarterly, The Bijou Poetry Review and Off the Coast. She has work upcoming in Cider Press Review and Shark Reef, and is an honoree for the Eleventh Annual Binnacle International Ultra-Short Competition.