I. 

One by one within a month, four siblings bring their grievances before 
Father, ruler of our domain. The laws of the home are too strict, they 
complain, no gum in the house—let alone sex or booze. No shoes on 
the living room’s cream carpet. A three-hour dose of church Sunday 
morning, an hour of seminary each day. They prefer to smoke pot, join 
debate club and practice their hot words on the walls of our home, fire 
bombs through windows. They drink and fuck and play angry guitars 
in the garage, dip tube socks in gasoline, light them, slingshot flaming 
baby gerbils, rodent rockets, over the backyard fence. They raise geckos, 
garter snakes, an albino rat they shoot in the head when it escapes and 
eats a litter of baby gerbils. They hyperbolize to shock, say they’ve tried 
heroin, crack, watch Father crumble to new resolve, his whiplash no 
longer lax. Laws no more a scarecrow where birds perch, forgetting terror. 
He cuts them off, clips their wings, hurls them into future. 

II. 

I cloister myself in my room, like a Mormon nun,  
except there’s no such thing. I want strict restraint, 
wake before sunrise to walk to seminary, where I claw 
my hands to stay awake through lessons I’ve heard 
since primary. I mark up my scriptures to a rainbow 
of Godwords, learn my favorites first by rote, then by 
heart, praise fathers from the pulpit, determined  
to balm Dad’s disappointment, to foil the failures  
of all my siblings, the sin of coffee far off
as Australia, the sin of sex distant as Saturn  
with its chastity belt. I would be a ring of ice rock, 
snowbroth blood. I would have God’s name 
in my mouth to chew on, my sustenance to savor, 
a night-and-day saint with my symbols: a vase of milk
-white porcelain with blooming sego, 
a golden liahona, compass with needle to arrow 
the Godward path I’d follow. I’d place on the altar 18
months of my life, missionary away the days  
knocking on doors shut like coffin lids,  
wading through thigh-deep noes. I would marry  
in a crenellated holy temple my first kiss.  
I would sing hymns and hymns to Him, 
force my voice forte: louder, louder, loud  
enough to shake down angels.