I. It’s hard to convince people Mormons are anarchists at heart, but when I taste the air above the Great Salt Lake, the tar coating our mothers’ children is still there.

II. At a conference in the state that ordered our extinction I’m afraid someone will find out I’m from Utah, ask if I still believe. The first night, I can hear screams of men dragged from beds, mothers hiding babies under creaking floor boards only to watch the home burn down. 

III. Utah, meant to be our escape from tyrants, only we brought with us new tyrants, who had our faces. 

IV. Either I am a true believer or I am a coward. Both, a disappointing kind of company. 

V. God, you promised. Said my afflictions would be but a moment. God, you dropped me in the promised land of your afflictions, in a state that refused to love me unless I was a martyr. God, you promised.

VI. I married my husband kneeling. The officiant told us, I feel strongly I need to tell you, your ancestors are here. Their spirits are so strong. 

VII. I partake of the fruit. Cast my eyes about. Keep my pinky-toe on the straight and narrow. Above me, seraphim like clouds, their many mouths singing praise. 

VIII. The order called for all Mormons to be “exterminated or driven from the state,” so we found land no one wanted and we handcarted ourselves to cannibalization and frostbite just to claim it. 

IX. A bishop tells me there’s no good reason to hold off on marriage when the man is righteous. Two, three months tops. Again, I ignore the mouthpiece of God. 

X. I duck away from the rites of my birth, devour my doubt to keep my family happy, honor a lineage of distress. Elder-daughter-steady, altared in pew-of-promise. 

XI. It took 240 Missouri men to kill 17 Mormons. The air above the Great Salt Lake tastes like a broken glass body tumbling out of a window. Like heading, West to escape, only for the place you land to be run by men whose sins make the Sistine Chapel look like scribbles. 

XII. Every knee shall bend.

Taylor Franson-Thiel is a Pushcart nominated poet from Utah, now based in Fairfax, Virginia. She received her Master’s in creative writing from Utah State University and is pursuing an MFA at George Mason University. Her debut collection “Bone Valley Hymnal” is forthcoming in 2025 from ELJ Editions. She is an editorial reader for Poetry Daily, the Assistant Poetry Editor for phoebe and the EIC of BRAWL. She can be found on Twitter @TaylorFranson and at taylorfranson-thiel.com.