She grinned wide and they looked into each other’s eyes, closing a circuit. Pa leaned out and snatched it in the net, then sat back, slapping his knee and yahooing like she’d never seen.She could already feel the paddle on her bottom and the backs of her legs. Her wings collapsed, stomach pitched he must have figured out she’d used it. Then suddenly she was jerked back to Earth by Pa hollering to her from the boat. Her fingers became long feathers, splayed against the sky, gathering the wind beneath her. She would lift off and sail over the marsh, looking for nests, then rise and fly wing to wing with eagles. The next morning, as Kya careened down the sandy lane, her arms held straight out, she sputtered wet noises from her lips, spittle spraying.His dad had told him many times that the definition of a real man is one who cries without shame, reads poetry with his heart, feels opera in his soul, and does what’s necessary to defend a woman.Just being near him, and not even that close, had eased her tightness. She’d never known anybody to speak or move so steady. Alone, she’d been scared, but that was already humming as excitement.Kya tooled along, a tiny speck of a girl in a boat, turning this way and that as endless estuaries branched and braided before her.Pa lifted an arm in a quick, dismissive salutation. When he reached the road and unexpectedly looked back, she threw her hand up and waved hard.Proving that imagination grows in the loneliest of soils, she shouted, “Ho! Pirates ho!”.She imagined them all packed in her bed, a fluffy bunch of warm, feathered bodies under the covers together. So she sat down too and wished she could gather them up and take them with her to the porch to sleep. But the gulls squatted on the beach around her and went about their business of preening their gray extended wings.Death’s crude pluck, as always, stealing the show. Now, he sprawled alone, less dignified than the slough. Finally, handsome man wedding the prettiest girl. Had watched his life ease from charming child to cute teen star quarterback and town hot shot to working for his parents. They had known Chase since he was born.After Ma left, over the next few weeks, Kya’s oldest brother and two sisters drifted away too, as if by example.He wanted to say something to get her mind off Ma, but no words came, so they watched the swimming shadows of water striders. Then-make-believe coming and going easily-she walked to a mossy log and sat.Right after breakfast, even before the dishes were washed, Ma had put a few personals in the train case and walked down the road. She’d tied a white scarf pirate style, low across her forehead, but the purple and yellow edges of a bruise spilled out. But this morning, Ma had been quiet her smile lost, her eyes red. ![]() ![]() Among themselves, doves fight as often as hawks. They will always be the trump cards because they are passed on more frequently from one generation to the next than the gentler genes. When cornered, desperate, or isolated, man reverts to those instincts that aim straight at survival.A man who didn’t mind scrabbling for supper would never starve. Layers of life-squiggly sand crabs, mud-waddling crayfish, waterfowl, fish, shrimp, oysters, fatted deer, and plump geese-were piled on the land or in the water. Maybe it was mean country, but not an inch was lean.A swamp knows all about death, and doesn’t necessarily define it as tragedy, certainly not a sin.Life decays and reeks and returns to the rotted duff a poignant wallow of death begetting life. There are sounds, of course, but compared to the marsh, the swamp is quiet because decomposition is cellular work. Even night crawlers are diurnal in this lair. Swamp water is still and dark, having swallowed the light in its muddy throat. Then within the marsh, here and there, true swamp crawls into low-lying bogs, hidden in clammy forests. Slow-moving creeks wander, carrying the orb of the sun with them to the sea, and long-legged birds lift with unexpected grace-as though not built to fly-against the roar of a thousand snow geese. Marsh is a space of light, where grass grows in water, and water flows into the sky.
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