Tortoise

I become to paralyze
Slow ingestion
Thoughts withdraw beneath bone shell
Each breath a tide against the reef of self.
The world thuds dully, distant, unsaid—
A hush between the seconds stretching long.
Hunger curls in loops of silk and stone,
Eyes blink slower than the turning sun,
Spine bent like the roots of drowned trees.
Even pain forgets the speed of teeth.