Wade Shirley Stephenson Pacuare Nature Reserve, Costa Rica We enter Pacuare by river. A swarm of eyeballs rises to the surface. Crocodiles lunge at the boats. We look to the canopy. Grant us a cotinga, or a toucan. Anything above this waterline. We know the story of the Israeli who died last week. When they pulled him up, only his hand was missing. Like everything here, the croc was defending its territory—attacking with gusto and bright, deadly colors. Twenty of us eat in the main house. Stanley plucks chickens on the porch. He says the lagoon is off limits for obvious reasons, and the ocean is off limits due to sharks, and the jungle is a peril we mustn’t even consider without a guide. We are hemmed in on all sides, and from above by rain, which will cease in three months. I share a cabin with Anat and Hadas. We sleep under veils of mosquito netting. A bucket of rinse water outside the door licks its chops with every entry. Nothing ever dries. Rain steeps our skin as we smoke and play backgammon. Click clack. Routes blur in the runoff. Anat stacks the carved disks, blows luck into the shaker. This is her third week in Pacuare. She takes her Lariam and steers clear of the lagoon. Once, a croc chased her past the third cabin. “Not exhilarating,” she says. Crooked lines do nothing for fear. They’re allowed to kill eight thousand a year. They club her over the head as she digs her nest, then slice open her belly. If it’s a green turtle, they take the meat and shell, otherwise only the eggs, leaving the carcass on the beach. But Stanley tested three hundred dead turtles and didn’t find a single broken skull. The poachers are ripping the turtles apart while they’re still alive. North, then south. We dress in dark clothes, cover our flashlights with red cellophane, and patrol the six kilometers of beach in teams of four. Alejandro carries a gun and pauses to listen, hand on his holster. He says he’s eighteen, but we know he’s lying. 4:00 am, the tide pulls out, and we relocate eggs from an exposed nest. Slimy, pliant cue balls. Alejandro instructs as we work. Depth and temperature in the nest determine a hatchling’s sex. In transporting eggs, we could affect gender. As we dig, a wall of sand collapses, and I fall headfirst into the hole. A red beam of light slips and points to sea. Smoke fills the tent of mosquito netting. At the river’s mouth, Stanley burns copal for the Israeli. Lanterns nod along the path to the main house. The dinner bell rings. “Instead of you wanting things, imagine everything wanting you, needing you.” So says a book from the shelf of tedium. You, the object of the rain’s desire. The lava, snake, and macaw—all demanding your presence for survival. Let their desire ground you. The ocean floor needs your weight to remain below, the tangle of chirps to stay aloft. Reverse your perception. Wind needs the falling leaf to stitch it together. The tarot cards depend on your vision. Scorpions in the toilet paper, false corals in the shower. Yet we are lulled. Click clack. We wait for dark, for purpose. What do I want what do I want hums like plump mosquitoes, bloody cargo on the wall. Why am I here. Paw over paw, husky loins poised in the threshold. Anat finds a canister of emergency matches and opens the last pack of Gauloises as the sun rises. In a corner of the kitchen, hatchlings crawl to sea against a wall of Styrofoam. Constellations speckle their backs as they bang against the crate, slipping over one other like restive islands. Click clack. We wait for dark. Tonight Chino brought a bottle of Carta Vieja and a doubling cube. At the bottom of every nest, one is left, one who doesn’t get helped. We carry her to the water’s edge, even though she is not the fittest, even though only one in one thousand survives. Sometimes we name them, draw a line in the sand at twilight, and cheer as they scoot toward ocean. Our turtle derby. She is our wonder, our heartbreak. Alejandro says she’s shedding salt, not crying. When we tag her flipper, she moans and shuffles but will not abandon her task, her meticulous removal and replacement of sand. Two hours later, we find another, tagged in South Africa. Her back measures four and a half feet. Her mouth spills the smell of ocean as I rest my head beside hers. Hadas stomps sand from her feet. Roll the dice. She teaches me Hebrew. Bevakasha, toda, ani ohevet otcha. She says these are words you will take home, words that will make you believe you can read intent as a man bars you from danger. Bevakasha, toda. She says you will believe he can carry you through the danger of daylight. Ani ohevet otcha. But beware. Playing dead never works. She’s speaking of the crocodiles, the sharks. There are so many warning signs. Click clack. Blow luck into the shaker. I lie in a hammock and check the ropes for fer-de-lance because the heat and humidity and lack of activity fool us into sedation when really it’s never safe to stop moving. At the edge of jungle, pleat of ocean and continent, I’m unsteady. Sunrise. We return from patrol, and the rain departs for an hour. The silence charges us, and we can’t sleep. Frogs like traffic. Something howls beyond the cabins. In the absence of thunderstorm, everyone speaks up. A lick of the chops. Hadas points at my chair. Rotted wood, split joints. “Soon, you’ll end up on your ass.” There’s no difference between breakfast and dinner, waking and the slightest suffocation. Each evening we carry what we want to save to the water’s edge. Alejandro’s hand goes to his holster, and he sprints down the beach. No moon. We point our flashlights and follow. Two men drop canvas bags and run when Alejandro aims at their ankles. “Slit them at the bottom,” he says, “and deposit the eggs from that end.” Poachers hold the bag beneath her as she lays her eggs, and we want to return them to a nest in the same order. We want to replicate nature whenever possible. 8:00 am. I break the rules and walk to the beach alone. I want to swim but imagine the story—one foot missing. I find a hatchling snared in a vine and carry it to the water. Flippers smaller than my thumb paddle against my skin as I stand in the surf. The week her son died, I found Sharon on a ladder, changing light bulbs. “I’ll do that,” I insisted, and her eyes filled. “Allow me to be good for something,” she pleaded. I wade up to my hips. Stanley said most sharks attack close to shore. Waves loosen my footing. Allow me to transport you. Flippers like a pulse against my palms, I lower my hands to the water. Allow me to let you go. Shirley Stephenson is an ER nurse in Chicago, Illinois, and is studying to be a nurse-practitioner. She used to work in global health and spent some years living outside the U.S. Her poems have appeared in various magazines, most recently, Diagram and the Southern Review. “Wade” appears in our Autumn 2009 issue.