Academically trained in German language and literature at Colby (BA), Tufts (MA), and Harvard (ABD), Maria Luisa Arroyo (www.marialuisaarroyo.com) is an educator, a single parent, a 2004 Massachusetts Cultural Council poetry grant recipient, a 2008 Massachusetts Unsung Heroine, a visual artist, and a self-taught poet. Her collections of poems include Gathering Words/Recogiendo Palabras (Bilingual Press, Tempe, AZ: June 2008). The poem below appeared in her self-published chapbook, Touching and Naming the Roots of This Tree (2007).

On Our Drive to North Haven

95 South and no signs to warn drivers of danger,

of deer attempting to cross this highway

as if deer were like the trees here-

too plentiful too many to matter.

The first doe we passed in the breakdown lane

had collapsed under thunder clouds.

The second sunk into the tar, the swollen tan

of her side a blur to the boys in the back seat,

who were whispering about John Cena, Batista,

the Undertaker’s possible return, wrestlers on TV

more real to them than the death of does.

95 South and no signs here either

to warn drivers of turtles trying to cross.

Far away, dark helmets or rounded tire scraps.

Up close, two turtles as the speeding car

in front of me swerved but still clipped

and flipped the second one onto its back,

its feet frantic for balance, for life.

So the instant the cream pickup veered

into my lane and almost hit the back of my car

where my son and his best friend sat,

I knew in those slow motion seconds

that it took for me to jerk the wheel to the left

and out of collision’s path, in those slow seconds

the boys yelled “Mom!” as the litany of swears

erupted out of my mouth and scared them more,

I knew that the does and the spinning turtles

were the missing signs of warning, of danger.

(Cross-post from Women’s Voices for Change.)