Here’s the Church

While the organist pumped 
“Let Us All Press on in the Work of the Lord,” 
and the chorister napped her arms 
like a whooping crane, and some sat there 
on the second row as straight as poles 
for the welfare beans, we sat 
folding embroidered hankies, rolling 
the corners, making two babies in a linen cradle, 
rocking them from our fingertips, and playing 
“Here’s the church, and here’s the steeple. 
Open the doors, and here’s all the people.” 

While infants cooed and were jiggled, 
while babies bawled and were carried out 
or put over the shoulder for a blasphemous 
burp, while children squirmed and wriggled, 
and the old men in the high priests quorum 
snored over the din of the sacrament hymn; 
while the high councilman in severe tones 
went on and on about chastity, charity, 
and the three degrees, we sat there 
in our Sunday dresses, first nylons, and new 
pumps, whispering the names of the deacons 
we’d date: Butch Fulkerson and Brent Parhduhn, 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. 

I always felt we were inside a plane, strapped 
down together by an invisible safety belt. 
Some would bail out into oblivion, others 
stay right on course, and a few, not only called 
but chosen, would fly directly into the blue 
runway lights of paradise. And what of us, 
we two, who remained seated under the No Smoking 
sign? We, who counted our sins as the good shepherd 
counts his sheep; we, who stared 
at the deacons much too long? Where would we 
land? Stewardesses or ministering angels? 
Wives of the priesthood bearers? Mothers 
of all those spirit children, waiting 
like the hankie babies we held in our hands?