Turtle wheezing down the beach,
flippers flailing valiantly,
knows what it’s like
to be bullock cart on the autobahn,
dork on prom night,
every rasping breath the death rattle
of a species,
of an outmoded
way of being,
and between breaths, the gaze –
unblinking,
deathless.
Ahead
it beckons –
a lurching habitat
of oceantide and dream
the promise of life
without investment
without dividend
in a salt-spangled
present continuous.
Until land beckons again.
Deliverance always
an element away.