Prism

Podcast version of this piece.

They had agreed
that if she were seen
the boy wouldn’t be believed
in seeing them.
Nevertheless, she was there,
her iridescent sphere
a corona
over their column of sun,
reflecting,
refracting
the morning.
The flowers turned to her,
the green of the trees
grew greener as the fruit trees
burst their chroma.
She listened to the voices,
saw celestial beings in the boy’s eyes.
Afterward,
she watched him home,
the bend of her bow
over his mother’s house
where he collapsed.
That night and many nights
he dreamed her.

Later, it hovered
the holy fire over Kirtland,
sheltered the long march
to the Missouri,
and bent over the new temple
at Nauvoo.

Nearing the end,
standing on the far side
of the great river,
he saw the double bow
in the East
and turned toward Carthage.

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