My mother used to water our back garden Wearing nothing but her Mormon underwear And she bought the sheer silky kind Not the thick cotton. What goes on in the temple Is not secret, it’s sacred say the Mormons and I Believe them. An apostate child for twenty years And I have never looked up the endowment Ceremony online. But I know all about the underwear From my mom’s summer gardening habits and From when I had to gather them up and put them In a plastic reusable grocery bag for her friend To dispose of in a sacred way after she died.
I saw her temple clothes too when I went with her Church ladies to dress her body before she Met the fire. The people who had retrieved her body From the board and care left her in her gown And half open diaper. When we opened the bag her Mouth was open like she was begging for my help. I tried to focus on her peeling bare feet Only on her feet but my eyes kept reaching for her In her face and my ears for the silent scream.
I had to leave the room and let her faith friends Finish. This was not their first body. Not by a long shot. All near my mom’s age themselves I wondered if They wondered who would be gowning them Or if their mortuary would collect them in a more Dignified way. For their sakes, I hoped so.
They are clever. I wondered how exactly you Get a floor length temple dress on a dead body. The trick Is you cut it up the back and down the seams Of the sleeves. You lay the dress on and tuck it around. Mormon beehive ingenuity and industriousness Is something I have always admired.
And the courage. Those women’s courage.
When they were finished they called me back Into the room, pulled the cover from her face And said, “Isn’t she pretty?” She was wearing Her veil, white dress, green apron. Blessedly They had closed her terrified mouth.
She was pretty.
Light in her hair Hose in her hand Watering the red hibiscus In her silky sacred garments Watching a hummingbird Wings nearly invisible Dart in and out of the spray.
I am an essayist and poet. My work has been rejected by some of the finest journals in America. Fortunately, it also gets accepted from time to time and has appeared in equally fine journals such as Word Riot, Inlandia, Brew City Magazine, and SageWoman, among others.. In 2002, I won the Academy of American Poets Prize for Vanderbilt University.
For no good reason, I possess an unnecessarily dark humor which is why being third generation California Inland Empirian delights me so. My gods are weird. I once won $350 for writing a smartassed essay on “why the wise use of water is important in my daily life”. I am undoubtedly the Greek god Hermes’ special snowflake. I’m pretty sure I got into college via a series of fortuitous clerical errors.
When I had to grow up and get a real job, I decided against it and stayed a writer. I have worked many odd—and I mean odd—jobs to support my habit: PR writer for country music hopefuls, resume massager, WalMart fitting room attendant and switchboard operator, and telephone psychic, just to name a few.
I am also albino. That's why my psychic gifts are so strong. I traded in my pigment for magical foresight, because that's how it works. It gets all technical. Trust me. That's totally how it works.
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M. N. Ashley 