What You Have to Do

The night we brought him home

From where he’d stayed throughout the move,

The turtle died. How Landon knew, I was never clear

Because I was more focused on the Injustice of Death,

How the Kids Would Take It,

WHY.

And then, forgetting, when I found it awaiting burial

(Formal rites of interment must be delayed until the family can be gathered)

In the bathroom in the middle of the night,

Bumped it,

Looked to see what I’d bumped (a bucket with a dead turtle sitting listlessly

Inside like a giant rock one of the kids had found and left

Somewhere strange),

And saw—of course I screamed. There are women who can kill rattlesnakes, set

Mouse traps, clean up the remains

Of whatever the cat brings in. I’ve known them. But they are never

The face that greets me in the mirror. I would not burn down the house over such a thing,

I’d just drive out of state.

The ceremonies progressed, Landon playing pall bearer, minister, and grave-digger

(With the borrowed shovel the handyman was strangely glad to loan).

We said a prayer (St. Francis preached to birds):

Please grant peace to

Thank you for the joy of

All creatures are Your handiwork.

And then the call. From his place of suit and tie, he’d searched a little longer,

Wondered what had given rise to sudden death and found

That reptiles (even turtles) hibernate.

He might not be dead. He said he’d never ask me to dig up a dead turtle

Like some kind of twisted horror flick…

Of course, the only thing I could imagine worse than digging up a dead turtle

Was a live turtle dying slowly in my back yard.

I did what any mother would do:

• ·       Locked the kids in the basement.
• ·       Poured a glass of whiskey.
• ·       Found a broken beach shovel (because by now the handyman was gone).
• ·       Sat down by the turtle’s fresh-turned grave.
• ·       Began speaking to myself/my long-dead father about Mark Twain and Faulkner and the funny way the dead come back to haunt us.

The thing about unburying dead turtles is this: you have to touch them. Live turtles

Are potentially hazardous

If they are snapping turtles or

If you lick them. But the hazard is only potential, and otherwise they’re funny creatures

That run away like dogs when you put them in the lawn

And run in circles like bugs if you trap them

And scowl like my great-grandmother when my brother was being bad. Dead turtles

Are a different story. Their potential for hazard has been fully met: they are the epitome of dead.

And here I was touching one.

Not just touching, either. I was digging him up, collecting him in a box,

To take back to my kitchen to nurse him back to life:

After Failed Experiment with Monsters, Dr. Frankenstein Moves to Zombie Turtles.

When resurrecting turtles, you have to:

• ·       Wrap them in towels.
• ·       Drop water on them from syringes, three drops at a time (like a witch’s potion).
• ·       Put a heat lamp above them (because heat + a dead body = LIFE).

You have to be patient. Let the turtle warming in the kitchen gestate

While you try to think of other things (not the times you threatened to make him into soup).

You have to check him periodically (if you’re not staying with him throughout the procedure),

To look for signs of life.

Signs of death are clearer, though. Once putrefaction sets in, the situation ceases to be

Ambiguous.

I still don’t know exactly how.

I screamed something like “Mouse in the kitchen!”

Loaded the kids in the van

And waited at McDonald’s for Landon to come home

And re-bury the dead turtle.