Endemic Problem
By Jake Dennis
Stretched on a wet log
carrying a house
as small as a 20c coin
in which it can fit
the Cumberland Plains land snail
translucent and moonlit
gorges on fungi
unlike Helix aspersa
that inexpensive household pet
and edible terror
which digests our Bunnings seedlings.
Secreting mucous
hermaphroditic
Meridolum corneovirens
slides slowly beneath the log
to evade the encroaching
concrete tonnage
of western Sydney’s suburbs
which could spread and press
down like a boot
on the Cumberland Plains snail
as it burrows into loose soil
to breed and rest.