Last night I dreamed that a woman, larger than me, more abundantly built with thick arms, a full waist and large breasts, was near an altar in a darkened church. She was preparing a baptismal font for the christening of her baby. She was filling the font through a narrow slot just beneath the lip of the bowl which rested on a simple wooden pedestal. As the water poured in, it surrounded and lifted a "cake" of rose petals resting at the bowl's center. As the "cake" of pressed and fragrant scarlet petals lifted with the rising water it began to break apart, petals floating on the surface and within the water. I watched her as if from the shadows, as if from a tandem world, admiring her silent purpose.
The water continued to rise, almost filling the ceramic bowl. As it neared the rim, an aged priest entered, informing the woman that she was filling the wrong font. The one she was filling was for lost, not living, babies. In that moment, a moment of slow horror, as the recognition of her error registered on her face, I realized that it was in this font that my lost babies had been washed out of the world. I remembered them, small, brown and delicately formed.
The woman, in terrible dismay, began sobbing, crying out that she had beckoned the wrong fates. I felt helpless to protect her from her fear that her child was now in danger. I felt a searing agony for her sudden sense of threat, arriving in a moment of such soft, quiet and careful beauty.
