Pungo Creek

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<P><STRONG>    PUNGO CREEK </STRONG></P>

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<P class=MsoBodyTextIndent>I'm the daughter who was born first, talked first and left first before the poverty that stuck to the rest of them could seep into my skin, below my fingernails and trap me permanently in that circle of snuff dipping, onion peeling, bible reading, egg collecting, tobacco tying, crab picking, whiskey drinking, hard fighting, varicose veined women that were my aunts and cousins and grandmamas back to the time when the first Foreman woman squeezed out the first squalling baby girl onto the muddy banks of Pungo Creek and the first Foreman husband said "Okay, woman, now that's done, get up and fix my dinner and while you are at it check on that stove" and she got up an put her squalling baby in the bottom drawer of the dresser she had lined with quilting pieces and flour sacks and let her howl while she put the fat back in the cast iron spider and put it on the stove that was going just fine and put her hands on her hips that were holding up the stained blue checked apron and wondered to herself how in the hell she had ended up a wife and mother at 15 years old and how in the hell she was going to stand living with that man until death released her and they put her in the dirt behind Sidney Cross Roads Free Will Baptist Church.</P>

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<P>  <I>Letting Go</I><I></I></P>

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<P class=MsoBodyTextIndent>Clara pulled in the oars, scrambled up to the front of the boat and threw the anchor over the side. It made a loud splash and probably scared away all the fish within a half acre. But they'd left their fishing poles behind so it didn't matter.</P>

<P class=MsoBodyTextIndent>"She'd be sorry if I was dead. If I was drowned she'd be sorry she hit me all the time." </P>

<P class=MsoBodyTextIndent>"If you were dead it wouldn't matter because you wouldn't be around to watch her be sorry."</P>

<P class=MsoBodyTextIndent>"It would if I was a ghost. I would come back and haunt her to the end of her days. I'd tap-tap-tap on her window at night and push the back porch swing...." Clara frowned and wiped her eyes. </P>

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<P class=MsoBodyTextIndent>"Come on, Clara. Do you really think there's any such thing as a ghost? I mean what if there isn't and you go and drown yourself and that's it? You're just drowned."</P>

<P class=MsoBodyTextIndent>"The way I'm feeling right now, Ivy, I'd be willing to take a chance. I don't see how being dead can be any worse than..."  She stopped.</P>

<P class=MsoBodyTextIndent>"Worse than what?"</P>

<P class=MsoBodyTextIndent>Instead of answering Clara stood up and brought her hands up in front of her like she was praying. "Remember when I got baptized and Reverend Linton said I died and was born again - that I came back to life? He dipped me down in this very creek." She closed her eyes and just stood there in the front of the skiff. </P>