At night, conservationists come to save the sea turtle eggs, guide
blind hatchlings to waves away from shore. We play Scrabble
by the rented kitchen’s light. Another year until my aunt asks me
about children. Another morning before my mother mouths one day
to the baby with sand in his fists. Turn around, and you’re tiny, born to water
like tonight’s turtles teething on sand saucers, silver coins, birch beer cans.
They come with wire mesh cages Mom will trip over at dawn. They come for
raccoons and sand erosion, for my empty womb and me. They come because
turtles follow moonlight and menstrual blood, believing glare
to be ocean, home, no longer alone. Turn around and you’re grown
my mother’s wedding ring lost to clutching sea-jaws. What if they don’t
know the way beyond the amniotic sac, slight briny water on shore?
On the porch next door a stranger plucks folk songs that cry salty tears
for their mothers as a million tiny turtles make their way toward us.
It’s phantom glare of beach house that draws them. It’s boardwalk signs,
metal detector, stars, lullaby: Turn around, and you’re a young wife
with babes of your own, and I’ve forgotten the rest of the words.
Mama used to sing it to me. Mama used to sing.
