A shell
is a wonderful thing to have,
if you can carry it.

This is not the world
where I had wanted to live,
I had not hoped
for deserts and desertions
and gilded cages,

a world where the tortured tortoise
can no longer be sure
if armor imprisons
or protects.

There is a version of this story,
where slow and steady wins the race--
that was another age, a different world,
and in our story they run for their lives
and no one wins.

Bullets and arrows are streaming through the air
and the world tastes like mud,
and this is not about virtue anymore.

The hare is fast
but his skin is thin,
he is too soft for our story.
There is no room for knowing smirks
and this is not about speed.

You want winners and losers,
you want a moral,
you want something like salvation
or a punchline.
You say it's the least I could do for you,
after all this trouble.

And I say I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
but the tortoise survives,

and isn't that a consolation,
isn't that something?