Incubation

by Elizabeth Weir

Through a sunrise window,
a snapping turtle digs among
purple petunias, baggy-trousered back legs 
churning soft dirt, huge carapace 

flattening flowers, her need, urgent.
The cavity, deep enough, she drops in 
leathery eggs the size of ping-pong balls,
pedals her nest closed and leaves the sun

to do its work nursing the darkness 
summer-long in dirt’s warm womb. 
Then, one October day, a thought,
an inkling, an opening in the silence —

clawing upwards with penny-sized might,
something new and tender climbs into the light.