Photo Credit: Gaea McGlothlin
Original sculpture by Gaea McGlothlin

Let’s just say that it’s a busy Saturday barbeque morning at the butcher’s counter. The burly meat-man has just noticed the old lady in Birkenstocks with the pale, far-seeing eyes. She has been waiting for quite some time even though she’s been at the meat counter since the store opened. The estrogen off-gassing, smooth-haired, yoga-panted females have finally rumped their carts filled with children to the dairy case. At last, he turns his attention to her, “May I help you ma’am?”

Let’s say that the Crone smiles gently – or doesn’t even smile; she just folds the knowledge of his masculine oblivion like a sharp obsidian knife in her fist. She’s the one who knows how to hunt sightlessly, in dreams across the tundra, her long white hair stretched like wires, each strand connected to a power animal. Let’s suppose that the survival of the fittest doesn’t ride in the loins of the sperm-makers, but rather, in the withered cunts of the dream riders.

Where does he think the meat in his case even comes from?

Let’s start over. He acknowledges her, serves her first this morning. Let’s say the young meat-man greets her as if she were his beloved grandmother, his Baba. How about if he ruddy butcher turns to her with his heart in his throat, asking “Mother, how may I help you? What may I do for you today?”

Let’s suppose that the cancer growing in her can be healed; can, with care and persistence, be cleared. She’s been carved and probed so many times. Let’s just say she knows that her meat-body is not her REAL self.. “How may I help you ma’am? What can I do for you?” He asks again, humbly, unwilling to leave her unserved. He offers the prime cuts from the most contented creatures. This young butcher knows that she nourishes a world of family. He wraps the meat care-fully, and hands her the brown paper gift with his eyes shining; as if he were offering her a love letter, a marriage proposal, a sacrament, a vow.

The single-breasted old woman in her Birkenstocks, with her colorful scarves and bells and her wild hair flying in every direction accepts the offering as if it were the most common transaction in the world. Her palm covers his knuckles briefly as the gift is passed. The young butcher reddens, surprised at his rising response, but the crone woman smiles knowingly as she tucks the meat into the seat of her grocery cart and turns away from his counter.