Sweetie
“Sweetie!” she calls, and I come, racing across the swamp, my feet leaving no footprints in the marshy ground. I run into her arms, she holds me tight. We dance among the water and weeds. Mama and Sweetie, together for always. I was born in the Sweetgrass Swamp, in a house on stilts, to my mother, Dearest. The swamp was our home, and we spent our days and nights there. We knew which plants were safe to eat, which rats and frogs were good when cooked over our little fireplace. I never saw anyone but my mother, and she rarely saw anyone but me. Every now and again, she would need something the swamp couldn’t give us- perhaps our clothes were more holes than fabric or we needed more fishing line to catch mudfish. Mama would pack up some of the cure-alls she made from plants and swamp creatures and head off to the nearby town to swap them for what we needed. I would beg her to come, but she never let me. So I would lie on our mattress by the fire, watching the flames burn down all night,