IT’S TOO BAD we lost that branch,” my mom says. “Now there’s just a big hole in the middle.” We are sitting on the patio looking at her Japanese maple tree that lost one of its main branches to last winter’s storm. Her comment catches me off guard. Is she talking about the tree or me? [...]
My Place in the Garden
by Heather Sullivan
That Girl
by Laura Hilton Craner
I AM THAT GIRL. A cliché. A walking stereotype. I am a young, Mormon mommy. You know, the one with three kids who usually wears a jean skirt and button-down shirt that sits behind you in Relief Society. I also take a little white pill every morning to keep the crazies at bay. Yes, I [...]
Ripe Pumpkins, Green Heart
by Melinda Morley
I CLUTCHED THE METAL sidebar of the hospital bed and dug my nails into the cold steel. My body posed rigidly as each contraction swelled and crashed over me like the surf at high tide. Sweat poured down my back. It left a salty pool above my lip, which I bit to stifle a groan. Bile [...]
Holding My Grandson, Come to Land This Morning
by Judith Curtis
I swaddle you tight to mimic the watery womb of your metamorphosis, where you emerged, tugged by froggy legs from your mother’s belly not two hours ago. The doctor cut you free from the enchanted pond of your gestation and laid you on her chest, a lump of jelled flesh held together by waxed skin, [...]
Fall/Winter 2007, Focus Column
A Living Sacrifice
by Kathryn Lynard Soper
I SHIFTED MY WEIGHT on the pew and sighed as the sacrament meeting speaker stood to begin his talk. Seven months pregnant, I was swollen and sore, big-bellied, and exhausted from the constant demands of my five young children who were crawling on and off my nearly nonexistent lap, whispering (or not) in my ear, [...]
Bearing Much Fruit
by Laura Lefgren Banks
Harvest When I was younger and could run and not be weary, I would head for the hills and jog upward and onward, leaving the valley behind. My path often wound to an overgrown and forgotten back road connecting two otherwise separate neighborhoods. One cool, summer morning as I took this shortcut, I stopped in [...]
Contest Honorees, Poetry, Summer 2007
To Be
by Noelle Carter
First Place Winner, Poetry Contest To be a woman is to be heavy: to know the elements, one by one, to return to the earth which first gave life, to feel its weight, and to come forth again. A maiden is a naiad: light as air in elusive flame. Her heart is bound to nothing [...]
Heavenly Gifts
by Melanie Jex
“MELANIE, ELIJAH DIDN’T MAKE IT.” Those were the first words I heard as I drifted back into consciousness. I tried to respond—to tell him that I knew, I understood—but no sound came out. There was something blocking my throat; it hurt. What was it? I tried to reach and pull it out and hands stopped me. [...]