A few years ago I was researching poems written about the Book of Mormon. I had read Eliza R. Snow’s “The Lamanite” (adapted from a poem she wrote before becoming a Latter-day Saint titled “The…
When a five-year-old boy tragically disappears from a quiet LDS neighborhood, grief-stricken family members, detectives, ward members, and suspects all struggle to find their footing in the agonizing aftermath. In The Contortionists, the new novel…
Like a mother opening her arms to embrace her children, the span of mountains and trees that look over my childhood home in Salt Lake City extend to the south and cradle also the homes…
Slipping off a Sunday dress—hoping you’ll join me and undress.No more dark slacks and white shirts,corruption of innocence tends to hurt.It’s worship too irreverent for pews,forgive my transgression against a holy muse,but, trust me, crisis…
John the Baptist was a hairy scorpionwho skittered out from the wildernessand began stinging folksuntil they saw the Holy Ghost. He molted like all prophets do,lived in caves, under rocks,until the predators found him—took his…
An armadillo dug up the grassin my parents’ yard last year— the kind that bounce buckshotoff their back and carry leprosy. If only I could do the same:materialize armor, lumber along. I could curl up…
I suppose only the animals that paired offand shuffled up the rampsurvived the flood. So this Bishop, pointing outthat we would rather flirtthan marry—well, he built an Ark out of the treeslining the church property.He…
Your lips are melting petals,Wilting into my mouth.My tears not clearEnough to revive them. When you learn to fly,Will they forget to dance?Lose their maypole eyelashesAnd languish, lonely, withWings cut. And yet,I pray, make me…
I.The first lie they told me wasBlonde Jesus. Thick Belinda locks,And blue ocean eyes.He hangs on the cross, whiteLike a tender lamb, orWhite like a lily flower,Or like white snowSmothering brown ground. II.The second lie…
Podcast version of this fiction piece. This was not the only time that Richards, originally born Neville Colyer, the son of a millwright in Oxfordshire, had worked through the imagery of the stars. He had…