Transubstantiation

POETRY

By Rebecca Findlay

Just a paper wafer, but still better tasting in its nothing nuttiness than the neccos we should have been practicing with. I’m afraid — if I drop it, I’ll go straight to hell, I know it. The wine is the real prize, even if it’s sour with dreg flecks and sodden Eucharist: sanctified underage drinking and public consumption. We’ve confessed and made our bodies clear, been preparing in the echoing space for months, emptied of the props wheeled out and in for the show. This military chapel is used by all: each schism and set is given one hour to go through motions, emotions, songs without dance, ignoring the ones before and after. And right now, the children are ready — we’ve studied, prayed, we know the way, and we’re waiting, thinking how best to take in the divine (by conduit hand or on the tongue?), to eat godhood and commune, while light plays on the wires holding up the cross. We haven’t started worrying how to let it out again.