Sometimes instead of walking the four blocks home after Sunday school I’d walk the block and a half downtown to the Millard County Courthouse in Fillmore, Utah, where my father worked as the county clerk. I loved the symmetrical purple brick building in the center of Fillmore’s Main Street.
They sit in stiff unmatched recliners,
a faint halo of grease smearing
the head rests. The Bishop asks again,
Do you want your names removed?
He says there’s very little truth
in the world
and he can’t wait to go out,
preach, and spread his own—
like he has the corner on it.
Dialogue 27.2 (Summer 1994): 69–82
Zina, like many other early converts to Mormonism, was a child of the Second Great Awakening.
They hatched today. Last night
when I peeked among the apples
they were eggs, four, end to end
among twigs and scraps and a twitch
July twenty-third in the canyon is
almost like hell-fire—sulfurous hot
waves off the powdery earth while
the children play in the trees,