DiaBLOGue

Throwing Up in the DC Temple

Enjoy 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

“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

Enjoy 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

Enjoy 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

Enjoy 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

Enjoy 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…

Special Issue: Health and Healing: Editor’s Note

This issue features submissions that address Latter-day Saint and Mormon approaches to health and healing. The topic has seemed especially pressing in recent years as we have both undergone significant losses and disruptions due to…

Mormon Tea

I.They leftDenmark’s ripening wheat fields,crossed moss-covered pathsof England and Wales, forsookthe saturated airof Tennessee to build homeson ground glazed in the open-air kilnof the western sun.Called by God,they did not think to askfirst peoples for…