i don’t want to know
what happened to her
because i’m certain the knowledge
would only confirm my fears
my smart little girlfriend
from elementary school
whose family were mormons
and made their herd of children rise at
4:30 in the morning to be at the temple by 6 am
for their mental conditioning
before arriving at school at 7
of all my friends mothers
hers was the most unhappy
i noticed during sleep overs
her red faced mom
was perpetually emerging from a room
looking as though she had been weeping
barring that she was always cooking
a statue of a latter day saint
stirring macaroni n’ cheese
in a five bedroom split-level
my friend gave me a mormon bible in the 7th grade
i told her i had no use for my king james bible
why would i be interested in a sequel
but she saw my dissatisfaction with being a baptist
as an opportunity for recruitment
we grew apart as the years passed
her eyes never smiled even when her mouth was insisting otherwise
and by high school she had developed a marked disdain for my free manner of speech and behavior
my thoughts on the mormon religion
had evolved by my sophomore year
i saw it as a misogynist hierarchy
where every man got to pretend to be a god
and fuck as many women and little girls
into subservient wives
as he was physically able
all the while
convincing them their only role on earth
was to produce more little boys who would become masters of their own heavenly domains
and more little girls
who would grow to be human incubators
she moved away junior year
to a more rural area of ohio
the year i graduated early
i heard she got a scholarship to brigham young
ah, utah
the mormon holy land
she probably met a nice mormon boy in college who allowed her to keep teaching
in a mormon primary school
until she became pregnant with the fourth baby
i’ll bet her eyes still don’t match her lips when she smiles
and now she’s the one
emerging from empty rooms
having looked as though she cried
i still have that mormon bible
and my free manner of thinking