I was born in a small town on the edge of the big swamp. I bring this up because it is passport time in my house. A passport without a birth certificate is always tough. My town kept no records of birth. Birth certificates are something for another time and town than mine. I always have more hoops to jump to prove my citizenship. There are many of us. Born in the usa, before it shrank in terror, hardened in horror.

I was born in the hot times, sweat in the summer swampy heat. No fan, unless your family or nanny did the favor. I had a nanny. I don’t remember her, but do recall the story my mother told me. That nanny carried a butcher knife. She wore it tied under her skirt. Tied on a cord, with a hole in her pocket so she could reach her hand into as she walked home along that hot swamp road.

At times I imagine that I imagined nanny fighting gators or crocadiles. Fighting something with big teeth, bulging eyes. Something that slithered in and out of the swamp. I knew many years ago that nanny wasn’t afraid of the gators. That knife wasn’t her talisman against the big teeth and tail from the swamp.

It was that south that I knew. That south that doesn’t exist. So the southerners say. My bet is that that south does exist. It just moved. It lives now in other parts. That south may hide, but is easy to find. It doesn’t take much of a compass in this america to find that america. that south shall always rise again. It is passport time in america, again.