Where is the Stone?
What has
become of
post and beam,
of the forgiven few who hung you there?
Where is the stone, the napkin, the doubter?
Where is
anything
anyone who
touched
you then?
And does it
matter
tonight
while your
voice fills
my heart
pulses
through
veins
beneath
blood
moon.
Melody Newey Johnson is the author of An Imperfect Roundness (BCC Press, 2020), a finalist in the 2020 Association for Mormon Letters Award for poetry. Her work has appeared online and in literary journals and anthologies, including Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought; Exponent II; Segullah; Psaltry & Lyre; Irreantum; Utah Voices 2012; Utah Sings, Vol. VIII, Blossom as the Cliffrose: Mormon Legacies and the Beckoning Wild (Torrey House Press, 2021), the Utah@125 digital chapbook, and elsewhere. She is the current poetry editor for Segullah journal and a past poetry editor for Exponent II magazine. She is the creator of Living Well: Retreat to Self, a writing retreat for women. She earns a living as a registered nurse and resides in Utah with her best friend, Jeff Johnson, to whom she also happens to be married. When she’s not writing, you can find her gardening or building sheet forts with grandchildren. The poem “Where is the Stone” first appeared in An Imperfect Roundness.
