From the perspective of a maggot, a cadaver is not an ending. It’s a feast. But then maggots are a banquet for geckos who are later gobbled up by mice. Laying hens peck mice into bite-sized pieces, and I enjoy chunks of chicken in my stir-fry.
Yeah, yeah. Circle of life and all that.
But are we more than maggot fodder? This has been debated since we invented the language necessary to express the longing and horror the question evokes.
“Of course, you’re more than maggot fodder,” The Ether speaks.
I sigh with relief, but I don’t let my guard down.
“And…?” I ask.
The Ether laughs. “You’ll be gecko excrement as well!”
“And there it is.” I roll my eyes.
“Seriously, honey, you’re not one thing now, and you never will be. The Holy Procession always breaks things down.”
I fight to stay coherent and unbroken in the moment.
The Ether materializes as a fat-faced child. Blond and defiant. I stare at the face. I wonder if it will wrinkle and hollow with age or stay pink and ebullient forever. I wonder if I will get my youthful body back someday.
“You wonder some crazy shit,” God says.
“You would too if you lived here. If you watched the news. If you had an inkling of what it means to deal with a real body.”
“Oh, but I do.”
“No, I live here. I am. And I do. You only pretend.”
The Fat-Faced Child frowns and begins to build a doll house out of Lincoln logs and Legos. “I’m gonna paint this pink and live here,” she says. “You’ll see.”
Her energy could easily swallow me alive. I go to the basement to get paint. Hot pink first. Then lemon yellow, lime green, royal purple, and turquoise. With this pungent, tangible turquoise, we could paint ourselves into the Upper World of the Zuni, and I am filled with joy. I am ready.
“How is this possible?” I ask.
“You have to fall,” she says. “Sometimes hard. Sometimes soft. But you have to let go and fall.”
In front of the doll house, a circle of my dearest friends are singing. Ring around the rosy. Pockets full of posies. Ashes, ashes. We all fall down, and they begin to fall. But The Fat-Faced Child falls first. Even in diminishment and grief, this is something I’ve always known.
The Fat-Faced Child Falls First
Accusatory cataracts
drop from my eyes
And I realize
The Fat-Faced Child
has always fallen first.
Always suffered most.
Always broken the fall
for the rest of us.
And in the endless ruination,
The Fat-Faced Child
uses all the jagged bones
and tender tissue
to build again.
Short visits with an honest God 