Fourth Month Rosary (Poem)

Because I don't feel much like blogging today, I'm doing it anyway. But you're just getting another poem: "Fourth Month Rosary," which was originally published in Irreantum 9.2/10.1 (even though I said I wouldn't be posting it here because it was published there first. So sue me). I just got the new issue of Irreantum in the mail yesterday, so I don't feel so about stealing some of their thunder.

(As a sidenote: Bruce W. Jorgensen has an essay in the issue titled "Reading About Sex in Mormon Fiction---If We Can Read," which I was excited to read. But he let me down and seemed kind of condescending, which was really disappointing in light of the conversations that have been taking place lately at AMV---here, here, and here---and earlier at Thutopia. But more on that in a later post.)

Anyway.

* * * *

Fourth Month Rosary

I’m spotting,
she says,

holding her underwear
so I can see

the crimson-brown
beads.

She hands them off,
asks, What

should I do?
then turns,

without
my answer,

to call her OB. I
walk to the sink

and, hands
churning

beneath a string
of water, wash

the soiled fabric
with prayers.

Originally published in Irreantum 9.2 (2007)/10.1 (2008).