The slightest drip of a paddle
is too much. Let the canoe slide
by itself into the rushes and lily pads.
Lean far over the bow, your arm
a dead stick, drifting its shadow
through the water.
You scoop
a turtle from behind, snatch it
from the log, a hard bulge
escaped inward.
Snapper, you grab between
your careful fingers, arched
across the shell, back from
their craning dinosaur necks,
their mute bird beaks.
When you miss, you hear
the soft blip. Bubbles trail off
in deep, iridescent angles.
You don’t catch them
for any reason. They scratch around
the canoe’s wet bottom, leaving
stinking pools, and you bring them
two miles home. For days they wallow
and scrape their brown helmets
in the aluminum tub by the dock.
You add mussel shells and a Petoskey
stone for company. You feed them
worms, grubs, and a granddaddy longlegs.
You get used to hearing them.
When you go to swim, or sit
at the end of the dock feeding
the clamoring swans at sunset,
you start believing that skidding
is their real voice.
But when you let them go,
they ease down the rocks and slide
unruffled and heavy as fishing lead
under the alien weeds
in righteous silence.