It’s wild and sad, this dark sound:
the tortoises are mating out in the garden.
They rush at each other, and flee, and catch each other,
they try to couple but it’s difficult,
even though the strength of their genes,
an ancestral impulse that boils inside them,
wishes to survive them, wear them out,
and makes their blood burn beneath the shell.
The shield of their belly bumps against armour-plating,
and they don’t look at each other or encounter reptilian flesh.
Noise comes from the pleasure that brings the risk
of finding themselves belly-up and unable to right themselves,
motionless, without breath, burnt by the sun:
for the vital principle that impels the species
has already been perpetuated in the individual.
It’s wild and sad, this dark sound,
like the cries and groans that night makes.