standing at the edge of a rice field
shooting skeet though as you get
closer you see those are not clay
pigeons but painted turtles, filling
you with horror until you realize
that these irrigation ditches are
grossly overpopulated with this
particular turtle, the Mississippi
slider (Trachemys scripta), which
was brought into the country as
pets because they're so darned
cute when their shell is the size
of a quarter but they possess
a voracious appetite and grow
fast so people let them go into
this network of canals where
they spread like a virus in an
immunocompromised host,
choking out the more docile
musk turtles indigenous to
this region. Still, this is cruel
and you would say something
if the guy actually hit one but
he keeps missing and the turtles
spin over the flooded fields
coming down in the distance
as you keep the time: one
Mississippi, two Mississippi,
three Mississippi...
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