Box Turtle

I’m on my way to pick up the mail.

You are parked along the driveway.

Back leg extended, neck craning forward in suspended

animation.

Your amber reptilian eye

fixates on me with an air of defiance.

I know where you are headed.

Across the asphalt

to reach the other side of the road.

But would you not be safer here?

Under the juniper hedge,

Sheltered in cool layers of leaf litter.

You know better.

Instincts intact, you stand dead still.

Wait for me to go,

quite unperturbed. I take in the beauty

of your embossed shell.

Golds and russets and grays adorn you.

Your skin is folds, scales and horny leather.

A pert little tail protrudes from under.

Will your sharp claws propel you

to the other side

in your own sweet time?

Half an hour later
vanished.