My mother never ventured far from the edge of the swamp.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by John Grey My mother never ventured far from the edge of the swamp.\u00a0Nor did I.\u00a0She was three and a half foot long,\u00a0undulated shiny and black,\u00a0scraping the soil with her red belly.\u00a0That became my own method\u00a0\u00a0of getting where I needed to be.\u00a0Her mid-body scales formed seventeen rows,\u00a0subcaudals single anteriorly, divided posteriorly.\u00a0No surprise then that mine Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-full-width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-62","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/15-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/15-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/15-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/15-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/15-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/15-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/62\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":425,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/15-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/62\/revisions\/425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/15-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/span>Nor did I.<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>She was three and a half foot long,<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>undulated shiny and black,<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>scraping the soil with her red belly.<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>That became my own method\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>of getting where I needed to be.<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>Her mid-body scales formed seventeen rows,<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>subcaudals single anteriorly, divided posteriorly.<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>No surprise then that mine were exactly the same.<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>I never knew my father.<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>He could have been the one nestled in the hollow log,<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>or gliding through the mangroves,<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>or engaged in writhing combat\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>with another of his kind.<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>My mother dined on frogs and rats.<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>Same menu for me then.<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>But she devoured a cane toad, died of its poison.<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>So<\/span>\u00a0I avoided those hideous creatures.<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>Man too\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>until one crushed my skull<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>with a tree-branch,<\/span>
<\/span>left me to die on a brush track\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>in the outer suburbs of the city.<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>He saw in me\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>the embodiment of Original Sin.<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>My view of him<\/span>\u00a0
<\/span>was purely circumstantial.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n