The Turning
Why we could press our bodies so close
we could feel each other’s bones. Why we
could press our bodies so close we could
feel our heartbeats. Why this is reassuring
when the earth has turned away from
the sun. Why the son or daughter could
turn away from the mother or the father.
Or had to, and later the friend turns
away et cetera. Why the calling was no
more than an ear cocked to the ground,
or the cry heard during a battle. The cry
of one’s own child ruptures the veneer
of safe-keeping. The call of the loon in
the dark night is at first disorienting
and then transfixing. Why we harbor our
small feelings with words and deeds and
outsized acts. Why we could condescend
to explain the intricacies of many systems
and yet fail to heed them. Why the field burns
away and the trees and soon many of the
houses. The house shakes to its foundations
at the unexpected hour and your child clings
to you like a marsupial. Why the structure
of the body is symmetric like leaves or
crystals but not time, or bodies of water
or anything else. Why the eyes are no longer
like mirrors once the life has left them.
That a phrase life has left them is even
possible. Why the days grow in expansive
possibility while they shrink exponentially
in number. Why they are nothing more
than a pattern adapted to in our circadian
rhythm. The same with years and decades
though we fight against this. Why
we apply any system to achieve
an order we are convinced exists.
• • •
Robert Detman has published fiction, poetry, and essays in over fifty publications, including Antioch Review, Causeway Lit, New Orleans Review, The Smart Set, The Southampton Review, Tusculum Review and elsewhere. His stories have been finalists for the New Letters Literary Awards and nominated for the Best of the Net, and a story collection was a semifinalist for the Hudson Prize from Black Lawrence Press.