Red-eared Sliders in Southern New Jersey by Ann E. Michael

Along the Cooper River and Pennsauken Creek
late spring on the humid coastal plain
red-eared sliders slipped through mud and sedge,
leaf litter and Coke bottles, seeking
sustenance after a winter of not-quite-torpor.

We watched for them. They were likely some
former pet a child outgrew, set loose
to fend and forage, feed on toad spawn, fish-bait,
water-striders, duckweed—omnivorous
and swift, even on land.

We did not catch them. Our mothers would object,
and we thought a turtle indoors boring,
but beside the creek we crept behind them,
we lay willow wands on water’s surface
to capture their attention.

In motion, in their voraciousness, they rose
in our esteem, even as they rose
above the stream, ever urgent and moving forward.
They were colonists, southern strangers—unlike us,
intent on settling in.



Ann E. Michael lives in eastern Pennsylvania. Her latest poetry collection (2024) is Abundance/Diminishment. Her work has appeared in Ninth Letter, One Art, Ekphrasis Review, and many others, as well as in numerous anthologies. She chronicles her writing, reading, and garden on a long-running blog at www.annemichael.blog