Breach Birth: Aug. 20, 1891

“We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, not per mitting any person to enter into its practice.” 
Wilford Woodruff, President 
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 
October 6,1890 

He is born breach, meaning gap. 
From the beginning 
he was negative space 
a blue cast shadow, 
blurred into background 
by a squint of his father’s eye 
and a prophet’s Manifesto 
proclaiming an end to polygamy 
in the Utah Territory, 
Swede Town, 
in this very house, 
where his mother labors. 

He is the unstitched seam 
between blood and water, 
a dangling thread not quite cast off; 
draggling in dirt between his father’s 
God and his pocketbook; 
two unreachable shores. 

Luck will be his religion, 
he can live with arbitrary grace. 
He’ll be a shadow on the porch 
a blank face under the brim 
a thread of light 
along the jaw.