<div class="line">Right after my parents’ divorce,</div>
<div class="line">people blurted the single question</div>
<div class="line">they’d been dying to ask for years.</div>
<div class="line"><i>How’d they last a day?</i></div>
<div></div>
<div class="line"><i>Great sex</i>, I was tempted to respond,</div>
<div class="line">as if the thought of my sour mother</div>
<div class="line">fondling my father’s new rebellion,</div>
<div class="line">a ponytail, wasn’t joke enough.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">I guess long ago they made</div>
<div class="line">each other happy. What a sad</div>
<div class="line">thing to have to guess. Once my mother</div>
<div class="line">spoke of a nightmare in which</div>
<div class="line">she walked to our front door;</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">in pitch dark, she twisted the knob</div>
<div class="line">and a hand from outside twisted back.</div>
<div class="line">I imagine if I shined a flashlight</div>
<div class="line">on that intruder’s face, I’d see</div>
<div class="line">my ever-frustrated father.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Proximity without loving</div>
<div class="line">was their creed, him plucking</div>
<div class="line">a guitar in a room off the kitchen,</div>
<div class="line">her clicking a noisy blender on,</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">and so I couldn’t believe it when my father said</div>
<div class="line"><i>Enough</i> after all those nights</div>
<div class="line">he laid in their waterbed, flirting</div>
<div class="line">with escape but drifting nowhere.</div>


Resurrection

How to Forget

I Guess

<p class="epil"><i>My son … thou didst forsake the ministry, and did go over into the land of Siron among the borders of the Lamanites, after the harlot Isabel.<br />
—Alma 39:3, The Book of Mormon<br />
</i></p>
<div class="line">To runners, a trail is church.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">I heard a pastor say church is its people.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">My father prays when he sees a rare finch.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Every Sunday, my teenage nieces cuddle</div>
<div class="line">in bed with their parents, watch TV,</div>
<div class="line">call this church.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Lazy Sunday morning sex can feel sacred.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">My husband and I watch <span style="font-style: italic;">Mr. Rogers</span></div>
<div class="line">with a box of Kleenex.</div>
<div class="line">Why is Mr. McFeely</div>
<div class="line">so frenzied when Mr. Rogers</div>
<div class="line">has the much harder job</div>
<div class="line">preaching love?</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">My mother used to bake two</div>
<div class="line">pillowy loaves of white bread</div>
<div class="line">to take to Mormon church</div>
<div class="line">for communion.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Men gingerly tore the loaves.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Everyone ate, licking their lips.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Some joked her bread was why</div>
<div class="line">they came. Is bread church?</div>
<div class="line">I first entered a Quaker chapel</div>
<div class="line">and spun around and around,</div>
<div class="line">never finding a pulpit.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Barely lifting her blouse</div>
<div class="line">my mother quietly breastfed</div>
<div class="line">my toddler brother in a pew</div>
<div class="line">until an older man complained.</div>
<div class="line">What was his definition of church?</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">In<span style="font-style: italic;"> The Book of Mormon</span>, only six women</div>
<div class="line">have names, the rest lumped</div>
<div class="line">into shapeless categories of wives,</div>
<div class="line">mothers, queens or harlots.</div>
<div class="line">The harlot Isabel must have been</div>
<div class="line">fairly important to get a name,</div>
<div class="line">though the 500-page book mentions her</div>
<div class="line">only once.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Isabel, how many left their lives</div>
<div class="line">to follow you?</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">A bored son in a long line of prophets</div>
<div class="line">walked away from religious study</div>
<div class="line">to sprawl underneath your bare body.</div>
<div class="line">Your hair shimmering like stained glass,</div>
<div class="line">your nipples as erect as steeples,</div>
<div class="line">you were his teacher, in charge,</div>
<div class="line">shushing him if he spoke.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Let <span style="font-style: italic;">church</span> trail off and it sounds</div>
<div class="line">like <span style="font-style: italic;">shhhh</span>.</div>


Cadillac Mountain

Ice Hole

Reverence

<div class="line">But why should it care? It munches</div>
<div class="line">a cecropia leaf. It probes the air</div>
<div class="line">with its blunt snout, detecting</div>
<div class="line">a waft of sour coconut. It lumbers to a branch,</div>
<div class="line">grabs hold with its claws, drops,</div>
<div class="line">dangling upside down like a knapsack.</div>
<div class="line">It doesn’t know to feel ashamed</div>
<div class="line">that its name means lazy and sinful.</div>
<div class="line">Like my little sister</div>
<div class="line">after her abortion, when our father</div>
<div class="line">changed her name from Molly to <em>Molly</em>.</div><p></p>

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December 27, 2010A Sloth First Hears Its NameMarianne Kunkel

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December 27, 2010A Sloth First Hears Its NameMarianne Kunkel

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I Guess by Marianne Kunkel

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