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Sport 38: Winter 2010
Settlement
page 213
Settlement
Turtles take their time to procreate.
People like to watch the advance
up the beach, the place chosen, a hole
dug. The turtles leave immediately
back to the sea, never witnessing the final miracle.
The audience is moved by their people-movers
back to their people-places.
No one is around for the emergence—
a single tooth piercing the eggshell,
tiny flippers digging up and out then dark shapes
hauling ass for the surf. The experts don't know
where they go next—one hypothesis is
the turtle camouflages herself
in drifting kelp forests, rides the currents, consuming whatever
floats past. Decades later
she returns to the same beach, the same nest
a series of hard lives etched on the shell.