Robert Seatter
Tortoise
for my father
That bright yellow flash – a road stripe
on lacquer – glared on his shell.
We daubed it there for his own good
when he got old; he would wander off,
get lost in the leaves, seep into the mud,
seem clogged, almost given up.
Seeing it, we would scoop him up
in our small, kind hands, out of the ditch,
feel his head and legs slamming back inside:
the shutting of the lid on an ancient box.
We would set him to be watched
where every shadow marked him,
every bevelled claw, every silent step
against the sunlight’s glare,
where our trail of yellow lettuce leaves
remained untouched across the lawn,
as he began his journey back
towards the dark, leaving words like stones:
I want to be sleeping in this last house of my own.
Paint me no longer into your light.
Page(s) 6
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