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Pictures in books suggest 
That I first stood grey and white 
On short black kodak grass. 

Parental evidence 
Tells how I cried at trains, 
Of crayoned bedroom walls, 
And infant oddities. 

But this is borrowed memory; 
I begin in Cedar City . . . 

Two Recollections of the Cedar City Second Ward 

Somehow I feared that they would make 
Confession of sin a prelude 
To my being baptized at eight. 
When they did not, I felt relief 
Beyond the joy of pardoned guilt. 
I felt the need to celebrate 
By boldly writing LIFE across 
The blank space of my new-washed soul. 

We played football at the ward at night 
Using a white t-shirt for a ball. 
A single streetlight cast both shadow 
and dim light across the playing field, 
Where children’s echoes passed and ran like 
Furtive sparrows dancing in a wind. 
We played on ageless summer grass; and 
When one team scored too many points, we’d 
Shuffle players till it came out right. 

Helping My Brother to Ride Bareback on Grandpa Corry’s Cow

Low, stall rafters let us climb where
Only inches of musty air 
Kept Burt from light brown backs below.
My job outside the barn was 
Waving skittish creatures in 
Until the moment he dropped down. 

It would be hard to verify 
Whose fear was greatest, cow’s or boy’s.
She may have dreamed a panther leaped,
Burt scarcely breathed the wind he rode
Out of the barn and into the yard;
Holding her neck, her ears, the air .. . 

Our rodeo was halted by 
A mother’s scolding garden hose 
Which washed away the clinging scent,
But could not make cowboys repent
Of having helped or done the deed. 

Eating Raspberry Jello on Fast Sunday on a Tin Roof 

            My mother let me lick 
            The powdered red paper, 
            But that was hardly taste 
            Enough to satisfy 
            A young addiction. In 
            Me there was appetite 
            That yearned for more than licks.

            Then one April Sunday, 
            While others stayed at church 
            To testify the sweet 
            Inward peace men gain 
            When passion sinks subdued, 
            I saw my chance; and with 
            A teetering homebound stool 
            Accomplice to my reach, 
            I plucked an entire box 
            Of bushless raspberry. 

Evil could not have waked on such a day.
A southern sun and sky of brilliant blue
Had warmed the low roof of the shed where I
Climbed to sit, feet hanging over edge.
My untrained fingers lifted out the pack
And let great gulps of jello break my fast,
Nor did I taste a granule of guilt. 
My tongue was scarlet; but my soul was light,
For one brief moment sweetly satisfied. 

Playing Strip Poker Once in a Sheep Wagon 

            Halfway down the field 
            Behind the Corrys’ barn 
            Was parked a covered wagon. 
            Summers it was home 
            For mountain tending men 
            Who swore and drank black coffee 
            While they watched the sheep — 
            Leather men with shy smiles 
            Who’d disappear September, 
            Resurrect in May, 
            And push the sheep back up 
            The greening mountain valleys.

            In fall and winter 
            The wagon was ours, 
            A dusky place still holding 
            Adult remnants— 
            A rope, a box of tea, 
            Two western romance magazines . . . 

I was the youngest and first to lose
One of my socks and both of my shoes.
Another sock followed, then shirt and belt,
Until I realized how it felt 
When grey boards and bare bottom meet—
Cool and awkward but strangely sweet. 

            In awkwardness shared 
            By bared and clothed alike, 
            We poked the boyhood mysteries
            Of god, of girls, of 
            Whether parents ever sin, 
            And who had dared the taste of beer.
             Taking communion 
            From jacks and tens, we lied 
            The best and worst we’d done, 
            Playing at men by 
            Pushing dreams up greening 
            Mountainsides of truth, knowing
            They would slip down again 
            When supper dressed us home 
            In the early dark of fall. 

Even now, whenever I see 
A herding wagon beside a tree, 
I smile and wish I could look inside,
Remember small boys trying to hide
Together in a moldering ark, 
Groping for light in sequestered dark.