The Last Day
June 21, 2023“Scott Eccles?” “Yes!” “Please follow me.” Scott Eccles leapt from his seat, straightened his tie, and surreptitiously placed his fists on his hips in the Superman pose, for he had watched a video online that…
DiaBLOGue
Heart Sutra (In the guest bedroom at dawn, after the pandemic)
June 21, 20231Today we scorn Russians,But we were invaders, too.Our lifestyle at stake in Iraq.Searching but not finding.Blood and bones and dirt.Infection and tears.Fighting to prove . . . what?Truth? America? God on our side? Twenty years ago, I heard…
No Man Can Serve Two Masters
June 21, 2023Enjoy this poem in audio version here. But my diagnosis says otherwise. Depression oozes under my door: the destroying angel visits:until I can’t get out of bed. One week later I’m waving bloody hyssop like glow sticks at a ravenudging sushi…
Throwing Up in the DC Temple
June 21, 2023Enjoy this poem in audio version here. Maybe it was envy that churned inside meas I looked around the room. Wonderingwhat healthy Mormons felt instead of fear. My body forced everyone to consider what it meant to be sick in…
Passion
June 21, 2023“And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?”—1 Nephi 11:16 A body so light, it floatedacross wind-whipped wavesand did not sink. So full of life,it survived empty forty days,no wheat for forty…
Fierce Passage
June 21, 2023Enjoy this poem in audio version here. Today while researching ancestors, sifting through nested petalsof records for names that belong to me, peoplewho’ve left their bloody signatures in my genes, I found Melissa, some sixth…
A Good Sick Girl Never Gives Up
June 21, 2023Enjoy this poem in audio version here. A good sick girl would never give up.She pushes on in search of a cure,working as if all depended on her.“Not knowing beforehand” what she should do,she moves…
Hippocrates
June 21, 2023Enjoy this poem in audio version here. The doctor calls her sweetheart when she criesat hearing there is nothing he can find.He pats her back but will not meet her eyes. He doesn’t really mean…
Migraine Suite
June 21, 2023Enjoy this poem in audio version here. Prelude Something is not right. A haunting quaver to the world. Your mind feels viscous, your body watery. The lights have dimmed. The sense of the smell of ozone. AllemandeA greasy fingerprint on…
No Country for Nostalgia | Todd Robert Petersen, Picnic in the Ruins
June 20, 2023Even in the modesty of its title, Picnic in the Ruins is a deceptively ambitious novel. At once wry and gentle, its depiction of the various lives and stories that become snarled up in a…