The Silence of the Tortoise

He has his back to her.
She scrabbles up.
There it is—the field,
the double lanes.

Cutting the ears off
hares—is this
a sign? Left, right
or yield? The hares

don't listen anyway,
he says. They never care
how a race is won. She says
the he tortoise grows long arms

To clasp the shes.
You're not so old, he says.
But the silence after, the shell
falling against the glass.

Copyright © 2002 Terese Svoboda All rights reserved
from Treason
Zoo Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission