My middle child wants to know why Papa’s dead body keeps following us, from funeral home to church to cemetery
where my three-year-old twins are leapfrogging over flat headstones and my oldest has wandered off.
Last month, he held our still, dying cat, sobbing. He won’t whisper another goodbye. We let him go.
Heavy, this, even for adults and he’s only seven. But my five-year-old, my middle child, he watches
as the minister points to Gigi’s casket, six feet under for nearly three years now, adjacent, waiting.
Waiting with the other corpses, all facing east, the rising sun: prime seating for some apocalypse-resurrection mash-up.
He hears the minister say Papa is only sleeping, eyes marble-round, blue as the slug veins on Papa’s arms.
No one except my listening son seems disturbed by the weight of the dirt, how compact it is or the insects
swarming between here and Gigi and if they’re friendly. Will Papa like them? Only he worries over what happens
when it rains, how much a casket can stave off or hold. How will the dead bodies know that Jesus has been here?
Is it like how we know rain by its petrichor, funerals by their lilies, grandparents by their mints?
A residue, a scent in the air. A footprint. His grip is tight. He asks: why can’t Gigi and Papa be together?
Does he fear the casket’s walls, the solitude? Crows overhead take flight. He holds my hand as we drift.
Only he notices the sinking ground, the headstones like bobbing lily pads. The twins are laughing.
After we leave, it will be too quiet. We drift. We are drifting away. When we have gone
loneliness will be a weighted blanket holding everything down. Dirt falls on the coffin. He asks: how can we ever get out?
Bethany Tap
Bethany Tap is a queer writer, wife, and mom of four. Her poems and stories have been published in Litmosphere, Fahmidan Journal, Yellow Arrow Journal, and The MacGuffin, among others. Her debut novel, Upon the Burning, is forthcoming in 2025 with Midnight Meadow Publishing. More of her work can be found at bethanytap.com. Find her on social media: @bjtap (IG); @bethany.tap (FB); @bjtap.bsky.social (BlSky).
