To: Ned the Snail
by Larry Flynn
"Ned’s shell coils to the left, not the right, making him the 1 in 40,000
snails whose sex organs don’t line up with those of the rest of their species."
—AP News, Sept. 5, 2025
Don’t rush into things, Ned—but you already knew that.
Spend this indigo night at the foot of our garden gnome.
Extend your eyestalk skyward. Ask your questions. Go,
venture to the windowsill. When the child taps the glass,
she is saying I see you. Say it back to her, by doing
as you do. If you want to go higher, Ned, go higher:
curl up the gutter’s double-helix; crinkle oak midribs
under your mucus belly; massage those weary glands
on the roof’s rocky shingles. Inside, the child shares
your story; those vibrations you feel are humans abuzz.
You bring us outside. We plumb garden stones to seek
lefties softly sliming the sphagnum below our whirligigs.
Look up, Ned. That’s the belt of an archer, dude.
Facing this way, facing that way—do you care
on a mysterious night as possible as this?