BY CHLOE HANSON
On top of each Mormon temple, a golden trumpeter raises
his eyes to heaven. He will be the first to witness Jesus’ descent
from the clouds. The rest of us will mistake His body
for an airplane, some unlucky bird stripped
of flight. The Book of Mormon doesn’t specify
the scale of the savior, but I know
enough about human nature to wonder
if anyone would notice something small falling
through the air while the world dissolves like sugar
in hot water at eye level. My sisters made the pilgrimage back
to the Salt Lake valley when their universities moved courses
online. My father, the diabetic, furloughed from tuning guitars.
When we were kids, our van broke down
outside of Spencer, Idaho. My mother told us it’s an adventure.
Does she still soothe my sisters with that same phrase,
as if adventure, like menthol, bed-rest, faith
calms COVID-throats?
When the April earthquakes hit, my sisters asleep
in the basement, my father says he woke knowing he would die,
so he stared at the ceiling. He didn’t even unplug the CPAP
machine for a last free breath. We used to pray, each neurotic sister,
for deliverance from disaster, the slow-dance of tectonic plates
or disease pushing ever-closer. Every night my mind brought me
the image of our staircase collapsing before I could climb
to safety, how I’d be killed, at last, by my parents’
bedroom floor. When the earthquakes hit, my sisters
tell me family photos stayed put on our walls. Meanwhile,
one Moroni lost his trumpet. I am still waiting
for the moon to turn to blood.
Chloe Hanson holds a PhD in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, where she was mentored by Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. In 2020, she was selected as one of six creative grantees by the Culture and Animals Foundation. Her work has most recently been featured in journals such as The Rumpus, Cimarron Review, Third Coast, and Glass: A Journal of Poetry.