Lake Nokomis, Minneapolis

I have no words for the strangeness I saw
that day in the lake or the monstrous
sadness it rose in me. What I know is after I
heard the sigh of a splash, two snappers
spun past neck to neck in the water, giant
cross-hatched belly to giant cross-hatched
belly, the ancient crags of their heads snaked
together, though one neck was a slack
leather strap as they gripped each other, the
bear claws of the turtle beneath rising out of
the water along the lichen shell of the other,
and it was as though the dead were pregnant
with life and the living pregnant with death,
both bursting and trapped in hard, rounded
shells, floating against the lily pads, unable
or unwilling to separate from their terrible
embrace. Above, the mating bodies of
dragonflies met in heart shaped wheels,
lightly landing here and there on white
flowers, lake foam, or a bit of drifting
cottonwood seed, though I later read the
male subdues the female by biting her
thorax then stabs his barbed and callous
body into hers, that she can remain
suspended with him for hours while he
scrapes out the sperm of his competitors,
that after she lays her eggs in the water’s soft
mouth, she is old and will die, that if she dies
midflight, her wings will turn her body
upright, land her all the way down, gently to
the ground. 

Kristin Gifford lives in Minneapolis where she is endlessly inspired by the Mississippi, the changing seasons, her local co-op, and the bunnies in her lawn. Her poetry has been published by Sojourners, Briar Cliff Review, 3Elements, Thimble, and Heimat Review.