The Bishop's Chapbook

After one of her parents’ weekly reminders to “do something Sabbath,” Margaret decided to google the more irritating ward members in search of facts hypocritical. And thus she found Upside Daisies on Amazon and read the free ten percent of its seventy-four pages, only to find herself unexpectedly moved by this:

              The Flock
       The new shepherd
       can’t tell through white fluff
       if the lost sheep
       is a boy or a girl.

She dropped her phone onto her chest then immediately snatched it up to read the poem again. And then again—seven or eight times. She considered tiktoking it, but her vibe was more sarcastic booktok than sincere booktok and that felt...off, so instead she texted the link to Sister Davis, who was the only person at Church not totally stupid most of the time and the only YW leader to just text because seriously, email?

*

Renee sent back a nice note but didn’t click on the link until she stumbled upon it again Friday night, sleepless and uninterested in restreaming Buffy.

She tapped Look Inside and found “The Flock.” Nice. Obvious why Margaret liked it. She read a couple more. Then a couple more. Then she paid the ninety-nine cents to download it to her Kindle app and read every last page. Was this really their Timothy Dozer, the one sitting up there on the stand each Sunday? Skimming through a second time she realized the phrase “vomit the crickets of my soul” was almost certainly a Mormon tell. And “two years in Dixie”—where had Tim served his mission?—he’d definitely served one and she didn’t think he knew a language.... She sent the link to Beth and Juanita to see what they thought, then went to bed, held on tight to her husband, and recited “onward! ever onward! till our bodies decompose” into the bit of pillow between her mouth and his shoulder.

*

Juanita was up at four with her newborn. The other kids were up at six. She gave them cereal and let them watch Netflix. The baby finally went back down and she staggered to bed where a half-awake Ed starting pawing her. She shoved him away, but the effort woke her back up so she grabbed her phone, locked herself in the master bath, and lay down on the once-plush shower rug to ignore the yelling as it slowly spilled out of the family room. The top notification was from Renee: an Amazon link and “What I did last night.” Juanita snorted. With no kids and both working from home for tech companies, the Davises knew every restaurant, saw every movie, and possibly fit in sex half the nights of the week as well. But she clicked the attached link and the free sample of Upside Daisies was just what she needed: Juanita fell into sleep as into a Caribbean riptide.

*

Meanwhile, Beth’s girls needed shoes and she wanted it done before noon. The younger two were no problem, but Della had turned eleven and suddenly had to try on dozens of pairs and spent more time staring in the mirror than sprinting down the rows. In fact, she didn’t sprint at all. She...minced.

Beth erased the word from her mind. It wasn’t an admission she was ready to make. Fifth graders, she would choose to believe, do not mince. They never have minced. They never will mince. But Della continued her not mincing and the younger two their running and so, bored, Beth pulled out the girls’ iPad, which made the youngers decide they needed to play Crossy Road like now. Beth handed it over and found her phone instead, where saw Renee’s text and bought the book. Every year she spent hundreds on books she never read—at least buying poetry felt virtuous.

It took a few poems to settle her mind enough to follow the words. The poems were short, almost conversational. Most made her smirk. But the title “Horse Fantasy” made her blink because, geewhiz, didn’t that capture her entire childhood?

       She prances with plaited mane and iron feet
       and whinnies at birds resting on the fence.
       The sun could shine brighter, the breeze could blow softer
       but this Beauty can feel no more joy
       than this.

She wasn’t sure it was good—she didn’t think it was—but she sat there and smiled anyway. Horses! Then she swiped to the next page and read

              Knacker
       All things come to
       an end, she said.
       And she asked the children
       to put lids on their pastepots,
       a jasmine breeze peeking through the window.

Beth rolled her eyes. “‘Well this one certainly isn’t any good,’ said the venerable old English major. What’s that breeze doing, and—wait—there was a breeze in the other—we’ve got a motif here, so what—wait—paste—knacker?—oh...—”and she surprised herself with a quick sob. “That poor horse!”

Beth laughed at herself and put the Kindle away. “Della! Two minutes!”

Pretty silly stuff.

*

Beth and Steve had a babysitter that night who took the kids straight to the trampoline. While Steve waited, he pulled his wife’s phone from her purse and tapped in its pin, flipped through the open apps. She had a book open so he pulled it up. Some poem. He read it. Aren’t knackers...panties? He tried to remember. He’d served a mission in Liverpool and it had been a while but—he was pretty sure. Was this James Joyce or something? He went to the next poem. Something about olives and oranges. Dumb. Next. Too long. Next. Also too long. Next.

              Blockhead
       What Lucy called Charlie, yes—
       but the god named Charles
       carved that wood
       and polished those axles
       and sent his creation
      screaming down the track.

Oh. Pinewood Derby. Were they all puzzles like this? Thought of the one about panties and children and glue. Stopped thinking about that one. Heard Beth coming so he slid her phone under Knuffle Bunny and stood to greet her with a hand on her waist and a kiss.

*

Once the kids were in bed—even Della, who was probably old enough to start babysitting, herself—Karley sat down with two tiny tubs of Häagen-Dazs. She made the instinctive reach for her phone only to be disappointed the fortieth time this hour. How could she have left it in Dad’s dumb car? She shoved around the kid books and Ensigns and found Sister Barna’s phone. The screen was still on somehow and it was showing some weird poem. Ugh. But she swiped and read another. Then another. They were...okay. She liked “Falling down the stairs on Saturday before even the kids are up.” She probably should not have read “Pornographic Acrostic” even though it didn’t make any sense. Somehow, she’d gotten Double Belgian Chocolate Chip on both hands, so as she tried to get out of the book with her elbows she ended up at the beginning instead. So she just kept reading. This one made her pause:

              The Flock
       The new shepherd
       can’t tell through white fluff
       if the lost sheep
       is a boy or a girl.

Her first thought was it might be good for Margaret, so she took a screenshot and— Riiight. Not her phone. Probably shouldn’t with Sister Barna’s phone. And besides, whenever Karley sends Margaret a scripture or a quote or whatever, something’s always wrong with it. What would Margaret say about this one? Maybe, “Why was the shepherd even checking? Pervert!”

Sister Davis said never give up on lost sheep, but Margaret wasn’t lost. She was more like a sheep who thought it was fun to kick the ninety-and-nine in the eyeballs. So Karley just shrugged half a prayer on Margaret’s behalf, opened the other ice cream, licked her fingers, and switched to Netflix.

Theric Jepson is an author, teacher, critic, and general annoyance based in the Bay Area.

Artwork by Jon Forsyth with Leonardo Diffusion.