Peggy Landsman, USA
Enturtled
Olowalu, Maui, Hawaii
The gentlest turtles in the world
wear their shells in Hawaii.
The world is their water.
They are at home in their skin.
When a bearded old sociologist
on leave from winter in Buffalo
breaks, splashing, into their water,
his pale skin does not remind them
that somewhere else
it is snowing.
One of the more gregarious
swims alongside the stranger,
welcomes him to their world
of liquid reverie.
By the canal across the street
Pompano Beach, Florida
The three iguanas are here again.
They decorate the retaining wall,
They monitor the road.
I am brave.
I stand as close as four or five feet.
Their ancient looks intrigue and threaten.
They ride their claws and are gone.
Paper and plastic cups,
Grey-brown husks of coconuts
litter the canal.
Fractal patterns of oil slide
across the reflections of clouds
in water the color of mud mixed with rust.
Peggy Landsman is the author of a poetry chapbook, To-wit To-woo (Foothills Publishing). Her work has been published or is forthcoming in many literary journals and anthologies, including, most recently, The Hypertexts, Gyroscope Review, Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse (Lost Horse Press), SWWIM Every Day, and Mezzo Cammin. She currently lives in South Florida where she swims in the warm Atlantic Ocean every chance she gets. Visit her at peggylandsman.wordpress.com.