David & I were getting baptized with the water,
Mother with the Spirit;
Adonis, his goddess,
& me,
submerging separately,
reemerging jointly.

Though I was calm as a summer day on Hoggshead Beach,
inside, I was saying good-bye to the old me,
for baptism was a drowning, an exorcism.

I had honored my father & mother all my life,
if not my Heavenly parents.
In my chastity by default,
did I honor them.

Elder Roberts would baptize me,
for I’d chosen him;
the day would come
when I would nullify my worthiness to be
the bearer of future tithe-payers.

Mother, rejecting the plain faith of her fathers,
of her childhood, & youngest child,
embraced the fancy religion of her new ward family.