We Were Not Consulted
March 26, 2018We couldn’t say
the yes that would loosen
our grip, tutoring us
in doing without.
Some things were simply snatched away.
DiaBLOGue
Why I Didn’t Serve a Mission
March 26, 2018I turned 21 the summer of 1989 before my junior year at BYU. The missionary I’d written to had come home, and we had gone our separate ways. I started fall semester with no boyfriend,…
The Right Place
March 26, 2018Not one has made it.
Trout launch out of Snake Creek,
flipping through the air,
vaulting up the waterfall,
Junior Companion
March 26, 2018Mormon missionaries in Taiwan weren’t hard to spot, not only because of those white shirts and name tags. First of all, they were usually of European descent, and those white faces became luridly conspicuous among…
Night Work Near Escalante
March 26, 2018After dawn we hike through fine rain,
but the light is good, only slight
cellophane distortion as we look through
at trees and stream, box canyon walls
Sisterhaters
March 26, 2018I am, and probably always will be, a sisterhater. In fact, many church members are sisterhaters without even realizing it. A sisterhater is, sim ply put, someone who can’t abide sister missionaries. As a sister…
You Owe Me
March 26, 2018There’s a foul wind blowing in from ten o’clock
Saying, You owe me. I check my balance books,
And they don’t look off, but the wind insists,
You owe me. What? I ask. You abandoned me.
Missions and the Rhetoric of Male Motivation
March 26, 2018I couldn’t sleep. I sat at the open window and watched the occasional person walk by. The sidewalk glowed florescent orange from the street lamp above. It was quiet in Montreal’s university district, and everyone…
Antler People v. Womb People
March 26, 2018The antler people have ways of finding
The womb people’s poles and knocking
Them to the ground, if only in the mind.
The womb people bare their breasts
“Not Invited, But Welcome”: The History and Impact of Church Policy on Sister Missionaries
March 26, 2018Women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have engaged in missionary work since the year of the religion’s founding. But sociological research on the experience of these missionaries is still young and stands as a field white and ready to harvest.