I grieved for all those years
of going to his grave–
when all along Mother had known
of the machines keeping his body alive–
machines that had more life in their batteries
than he had left in his years.

David was my idol,
Mother believed,
in the way Tab Hunter & Troy Donahue
had been for teen girls in the sixties,
but he was more my Mary,
my sacred masculine,
my intercessor to the better life.

Mother was like a blanched almond,
the Catholic holy water & Mormon fairy dust
boiling away, rubbing away the hull,
exposing & releasing something akin to cyanide.

David would do Patrick’s temple work.
It was atonement–
not through his blood
but through the water & the spirit.

With one article from The Ensign,
my mother was able to set her body free
by setting my father’s spirit free.