Testudo

A bone-hard carapace,
shell cast on a hot shore,
emptied by the long toil
of leaving the glaucous
sea, scraping broad ribbons
on the sand’s glassy slope .

Gasping, digging a damp hole,
she lays round, sticky eggs,
a hundred leathery balls.
Baked and noon-dried,
she dies, picked clean
by quick scavengers.

Her hatchlings flail
and scuttle towards
the sea, led by the
gazing moon, their plates
like small patterned
purses. Soft, edible,
then hardening
in the rich sea-soup
into a chamber built with
this ancient architecture.