Helen Walker Jones

Cornerstone (Tracting in New Mexico)

With vivid cunning 
she draws rounded 
petals of smoke 
within her mouth, 

A Proselytor’s Dream

Mary Mahoney, a devout Catholic, left Kentucky and came west to Basalt, Idaho, where she met her future husband on the steps of the old LDS ward house. She was a Mormon for the remaining…

The Snowdrift, the Swan

In those Idaho summers, Maggie drove a tractor and sat on her hands in the movies, hiding her callouses from the fresh-faced college boys she dated. She worried about her peeling nose and ate nothing…

As Winter Comes On

Beyond my chrysanthemums and barbed fence, 
aproned sisters, some in hair nets like cafeteria cooks, 
whisk their casseroles to the kitchen of the old wardhouse. 

Grandmother Envisions Her Own Death

A white pillar will glow from the sand as I die. 
Those backyard trees will shake their empty pods 
against the sky. My moldy body will sink 
into its bed, smothered by sinners. 

The Six-Buck Fortune

I remember that day perfectly—every violet plum with its orange smudges, the rim of the huge blue canning kettle smeared with thick yellow slime and little tatters of purple peel. It was the day I…

Saturday Evening, Sunday Afternoon

At thirty-eight I’m still single. Actually, let me be perfectly frank: Possibly Steve Young and I are the only people in the Western Hemisphere who have remained celibate until such an advanced age, and he…

War Bride

Everlasting

Bliss

The Holding Room

Guest Room

Sheep Ranch Near Hillspring