By Kinsale Drake
Salt Lake City boasts white tabernacles,
half-filled parks, a mineral
highway, and archives so vast
they fill mountainsides.
One summer, we researched our family
genealogy there, surrounded by giddy Mormons.
Their screens flickered with famous
relatives: a Custer, Jackson, Theodore,
Kit. Nothing came up on ours,
so we went and got burgers at a place
that sold no liquor. The burgers
were okay. But we shared our shakes
and secret smiles and imagined
ourselves renegades in that room.
Old-West-portrait: an Indian girl
on the run with no records and no documents,
her wind-whipped father clutching
his sarsaparilla. We had infiltrated
the saloon and city hall.
I locked eyes in the burger joint
with the confidence of a pistol-whipper.
The room stirred.
It smelled of grass
and gunsmoke.
I would not be moved again.
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We had spectacular weather on Friday, which I got to enjoy! We went to get bagels, I took a walk on the dock around lunchtime to see the ducklings -- and herons and eagles -- and we went to the beach in the afternoon, where we got to hang out with more waterfowl and watch swooping eagles and neighborhood dogs.
There was a rainbow across the lake at dinnertime, a surprise because we had no rain here at all. We watched the Orioles blow it in the 10th, the Mariners hit a grand slam in their win, and now we're catching up on Ghosts, which we somehow got a few weeks behind on. Animals we met at Breezy Hill Farm last weekend:
