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This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... Down in the Dirt magazine (v116) (the March / April 2013 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Entanglement (a Down in the Dirt collection book)		get the 340 page Jan. - June 2013 Down in the Dirt magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Entanglement

Danya Goodman

    You say we aren’t out of the swamp. Like I don’t notice the mud still gumming at our stolen boots, sucking. The mosquitoes’ tantrum. I wonder if our sweat salts this marsh. If the crayfish and the crane will die of the taste, then seize and sizzle, slug-like. No one would mourn them, either. You stop, your breath catches, but it is just a frog who bellows again. It rumbles in my gut.
    “Come on, Rachel.” You say, with as much gentleness as you can. “The sun is almost up.”
    You diminish, your head cocked. You are why we are here, covered in darkness, with filth up to our thighs. Yet, your left braid is undone, the wet hair veined across your forehead. Your scar hides under the mud on your cheeks. Those cheeks! Still, you look defiant in this muggy moonlight. You reach for me, but I pull back. Later, I would remember this moment and wonder how things would have been different if I had not shrank from you, there in the reeds. You turn and once more we slurp through the muck, our petticoats drenched in swamp, the ground clutching for us.

    It isn’t that the thirst is worse than the hunger, it is that they merge into an ache without edges. Even in the barn, late at night with you, I’ve never known this desire. Cattails break as we push through. We suck at the fibrous green stems, but they are bitter, salty. The lily pads, the green skin of the swamp. Even in the minor relief of dry land, the leaves are starved and crack. No water to be had. You try to catch a catfish, your brown fingers plunge into the muck, but there are no watery shelves, no holes. No place for the catfish to curl up and hide. Instead we envision them swimming, skimming the bottom just beyond our fingers. After a day you sing little songs to them. “Mr. Catfish!” You call, defiant of the dogs and our pursuers. “Supper time!” Your volume makes my pulse pound until I am sure I hear their hooves and paws upon us. You stare at me. Dare me to sing as well. My tongue dries.
    “Don’t be afraid.” You say. “We must be miles away by now.”
    The swamp murmurs its hum, muddled by my hunger. Your eyes are so vivid, I want you to flutter at my adventures, to stretch on tiptoes and blush to glimpse my brazenness.
    You pull a bramble from my hair.
    “I’ll protect you. You know that.” You say.
    But the song loses grip in my throat and drowns in my stomach. You turn away, ashamed for me, still. The birds stop to hear you call death lullabies to fish we are sure are there, taunting us just out of reach.

    Leeches. Horseflies. Weasels. Cat-like shapes. We disturb sleeping fowl. Too swift trout that knock against our knees. Willow trees. Roots. Rocks. Spiders skimming on the skin, walking as if Jesus. But also, of course, snakes.

    “I didn’t plan this.” You say, as you rest your head against the bark of a tree. Your breath is rough, but it has been days since we have ran. The heart is, Rebecca, I said, yes yes yes, I did. Despite myself, despite the prayers. You reach and I contain. They say you are brazen and foolish and I am calm and wise, and that is why we always try to work besides each other in the field. Yet this time, I reached as well. I wanted to reach for you. That is why we are here, moving through tree trunks. You opened your silver tongue and these stories of us up North, free within each other and I think that my cup runneth over. When we coil in the thicket during the day, sleeping in fits, I dream that you are a witch and you have come for my liver. Do I serve it to you gladly?
    The dragon flies are out in cascades. The twilight catches on their needled-bodies, and they flicker for an instant, lizard green. They glint on and off leaves. One hovers near your ear, then lands in your hair looking in the fading light like a bow. You tied a strip of your dress around your forehead yesterday to keep the sweat from blinding you. A crown of cotton. You are knee deep in swamp, as if rising from it. Born of the muck. Fireflies have begun to wink. In the past few days, your cheek bones stand out even more sharply. I would trace your scar with my tongue, then follow the line of your jaw down through your collar bone, between your breasts. But I don’t. You look like a queen, with the dragon flies adorning you, and the last drips of sunlight catching on the moisture on your skin. You are bejeweled in your loss. I shrug. I do not kiss you.
    “We’ll be there soon.” You stare up at the glow behind the clouds, the stars are there. They must be, somewhere. This is called faith. “Another day. Two at the most.”
    “Another night.”
    “Remember watching the stars through the slats in the barn?”
    “I would count them waiting for you.”
    “You were brave then. We could have been caught then.”
    “The barn was protected. Otherwordly, somehow. Not of the plantation. Blessed.”
    “Oh, sweetheart.” You say, and the light catches in your eyes like you are praying.
    “They would never have caught us. We would have had years wrapped up in each other every night in the barn.” My pulse quickens, and I feel the unholy hollowness expand inside me. This emptiness that is only ever filled by your fingers.
    You don’t say anything then, like the only thing to say is that of course they would have caught us, and of course they would have peeled our skin slowly from our flesh for loving each other like we did. Hung our self-shaped skins from the fences as flags to other slaves who may consider their bodies free. The dark water parts before us, and seams perfectly behind us, leaving no path, no trace that we were ever there.

    I see the knotted oak tree again, its side burnt from a long past fire. But so many trees have knots, that is way of trees, I hope. So many trees carry scars. Part of me recognizes these knots, the particular dips and folds of this bark like that dog with a pointed face that at this point part of me would be glad to see. I dare not tell you, Rebecca.
    Traveling by night, the stars shift and are hidden by clouds. Each night of fighting through this, we follow the North Star. We borrow each other’s bravery in small sips. I drink more heavily from you. We do not speak of our mothers. We do not speak of who we left behind. We do not say what will become of us if we are found. We both are versed in pain. The ache in our muscles, finger tips bleeding, the scratch of the cotton branches against our bare legs. What would be new to us would be the promise of each other and of waking with each day yawning before us. The ability to learn the language of each other’s bodies. To speak through flesh. To be the arbiter of what each hour should contain. Only we would reckon our own misdeeds, the small selfishnesses, the flinches and shudders. I would never have burnt porridge again, unless it pleased me. I would never sleep alone, never ache with need for you at night. We do not talk of why we left, and why we left those behind.
    When we left that night, it was sudden without thought. You had unfolded under me and there was this moment when we both understood that this unfolding was too large to be tidied. We were unkempt, tremulous. Sinful. We could not return to our families’ quarters. We could not marry. We would not lie with men. We would instead, give ourselves to the forest.
    “If we follow the North Star, eventually...I can sew. You can clean houses. These hands are so artful with a broom.” You had said, your eyes liquidy, kissing my palms.
    “If you go, you will lose everything.”
    “You are all I have anyway.” You said.
    “It’s too much. I’m not everything to anybody.”
    “You are.”
    “It’s too much. All of this.”
    “Don’t say that.”
    “We’ll grow out of it. We’ll love men. We’ll pray harder.”
    “I don’t believe you want to pray this away. You rejoice in it.”
    “Isn’t that more proof of this sin?”
    “See me.” You said, your wide brown eyes, your soft skin marked by the scar on your cheek, your dainty chin. Your peach lips, quivering. “What is there to fear?”
    I looked up through the crack in the barn, but there were no stars visible. I thought of my mother and my brothers and sisters turning on their mats. I saw my whole life unroll before me like a field of unsown wheat. I saw it wither.
    “I’m not like you.” You who had talked back, you who did not recoil when the whip came down upon your face. Rebecca, you don’t know what it meant to me that you never lowered your eyes. That you insisted on cup after cup of water in the heat.
    “Just try.” You said, in this voice, like a mewling kitten.

    So, Rebecca, I do not tell you about the tree. Even though the knowledge that this march, through the swamp must tilt towards starvation, weighs down my ankles. We watch constantly for gators. The hunger has carved its place. You no longer sing to catfish. The trees jag our skin. Our blood flavors the swamp. Our ears prick prick prick for the shadow stomp of a boot.

    You shake me awake. The sun rushes against my eyes. I am aware of the harsh welts on my neck, itching as soon as I am conscious. My thigh burns where a branch scraped. My throat is parchment. Sawdust.
    “Don’t hate me.” You whisper. “Another night. I read the stars wrong. The path that we take should only be one more night away. Please, please don’t forsake me. It will all be worth it if we can still be together.” I don’t know if you really believe this, or if this is what the swamp begs you to say, wrenches from your throat.
    I don’t have the strength to panic that you are speaking in daylight. My ears bristle for barks and shouts. I turn my back, crawl deeper into the thicket. The thorns catch in my hair. I tumble back into sleep.


    The rain! The rain! We laugh again! Tilt our heads back and drink in salvation. We pour the water caught in the wide ivy leaves into each other’s mouths. My throat sings, and I feel the water through my stomach all the way to my toes and finger tips. I engorge. We splash. The swamp gurgles gleefully, and swells with pride. It is up to our navels. Fat, juicy beetles crawl on logs floating past and I dare you to eat one. Manna. You do and smile. We clutch each other and your flesh slipping against mine in this wetness eases the rawness from journeying in a place that would scrape us against its teeth. Your heart beats with the rain. For the first time since we left, your mouth on me. We might reach, I think, as the rain lashes against that burnt tree. The dog face is familiar and somehow comforting.

    There is certainly a gator here. A large one. We hear him swimming. The tiny ripples, the soft moist inhalation of his snout. The current of his mighty tails sweeps against our shins.
    “It will be quick.” You say, through your teeth. “Stop your trembling.”
    I wonder if I prefer the dogs or the gators. Or the fever that warms the wound on my leg. I look at you, teeth bared, muscles clenched and I hope that warrior-you will be the last image I see. I hope that maybe by then I will finally have stopped trembling. I will come to you as sturdy and strong as you have been for me and I will say “Yes, I will. I am ready.” I will rescue you from the fear that I do not love you as you love me.

    You collect willow leaves and press them against the gash in my thigh.
    “Here,” you say, offering a piece of willow bark in your hand but not meeting my gaze.
    You are thinner. Your collar bone is etched out of your neck as if you were made of stone, not flesh. Your eyes so much larger without the flesh of your face to rest in. You are stripped of any artifice, any comfort, any ornament that might obscure the truth of your hard edges. You could slice with me with your hipbones, which I can now see jutting through the scraps left of your dress. I see you, the breadth and weight of you. It is like you were born of this journey. Like maybe you are already home.
    By the end, you carry me.

    The dogs that haunt our dreams bite our ankles. We start, but it is too late. This patch of thicket beneath that burnt tree does not conceal us. The swamp, itself, our ultimate master, seduced us with promises that it would eliminate our scent. We have not traveled far in distance. You reach for my hand while we hear the hooves and the rough voices tramp through the branches. I let go when they find us.

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