Maggots

Faith Cho

We burrow

Infest.

We seethe and     breathe under

         The bones and sinew of one

Loving Father and Friend: Michael Currows.

Chomp and

Chew

Through the remains

Of a dead man with two daughters

One is a doctor—who recently bought a home in Tysons,

Virginia: 955 Carters Grove Trail 30342.

Whispers

through the dirt travel

They tell us the other will soon join her father in Savannah, Georgia:

The McClelland Cemetery, 430 Sparce Street 58793.

And we will eat her too.

Not heartless.

Not mindless.

This is home. This is food.

Born in the damp groin of one Mr. Currows

And raised on the summation of his seventy-six years of living.

Have you ever

Been

Part of something larger than your little body?

Part of many somethings inside a larger body?

Moving in perfect rhythm

Methodically scooping flesh into your family’s flesh

Breathing and eating at the same time—a model machine

Until nothing but stark white

Lines that shoot through the dark remain.

Clean.

We are clean.

You are the dirty ones.

We do not let you          fester.

We do not let the disease feed.

We take you home:

Into us and

When we die—

Into Earth.

Clean—the Earth is clean.

As clean as the bones we leave behind.

You are not alone in death.

At the end

We will be here for you.

And what a comforting thought is this:

Consumed by brothers and sisters

Off-white jelly

Angels come to reap you of your physical soul

The heavy weavings

Churned apart in stomachs

One separated into hundreds

Faith Cho is a sophomore at Penn and wants to major in English.