Gale Acuff

Poetry

 

 

Penetration

 

More than I love Jesus Miss Hooker I

love, she's my Sunday School teacher and though

I'm 10 to her 25 what's fifteen

years when you've been shot by Cupid, I mean

that I have, Miss Hooker doesn't know but

I'm in love with her and want to marry

her and I'll have to act fast, marry her

just when I'm legally permitted so

that we'll have the maximum amount of

time together here on earth before we

move on to the Hereafter, in Heaven

I'm hoping and being her husband can't

hurt when I'm dead because she can buy me

some sympathy with the Trinity--hey,

that rhymes, sort of--because I'm not so sure

that I can make it into Heaven by

myself, I'm a pretty fair sinner for

ten years old and bound to improve at it,

I mean become a better sinner so

I''ll need all the help I can get with it,

not doing it I mean, not doing it

so much I mean. So after Sunday School

 

today I spilled my guts to Miss Hooker,

that's just a figure of speech but then I

did say that Cupid penetrated me,

my heart anyway, but anyway she

told me to come back when I'm old enough

did Miss Hooker but then she confessed

that she didn't know what age that is--is

it 16 or 18? 21?

So I've got a week to find out before

I see her again and I'll also work

on my proposal of marriage to her

--it's got to sound good, good enough to keep

her hooked until I'm old enough to be

a groom. Can I have Jesus for my best

man? That would take a miracle but none

greater than if Miss Hooker and I splice.

If it wasn't me, I'd pay to see that.

 

 

 

Clarification

 

It's Jesus Who rose from the dead because

He had to show people that death's not death,

at least not exactly or like they thought.

And one day I'm going to die even

though I'm only 10 now and of sound mind

--I hope--and sound body, I forget where

I picked that up, the Bible most likely

or at least our Sunday School teacher, that's

Miss Hooker, and she's got to die, too, and

if I'm still around when she does, I'll cry

--weep's probably the better word--and death

should, too, weep I mean, if it can, I mean

if it's like a person but anyway

I just can't imagine not being what

I am now, alive I mean, so death comes

--or will--as something a lot different

from what I know though I know I don't know

what things were like, for me, anyway, be

-fore I was born, nor where I was, if I

was anywhere, that is, or of it took

just nine months to make me me, or the part

that maybe matters the most. So when I

 

die, Miss Hooker says, I'll live forever,

eternally that is, in Heaven or

Hell, I mean when I get up from where I've

fallen, my soul anyway, which goes off

to see God for His judgment, Heaven for

-ever or Hell. I think if it's Heaven

then I get to see Jesus in the flesh,

kind of, or we'll talk spirit to spirit\

but for all the questions I'll have then I

wonder if they'll signify as much there.

I have pals in regular school who go

to other churches--some say that they'll hang

in their coffins until the Judgment Day.

They say that my church has got it all wrong

so I asked Miss Hooker to clarify

and she told me to take it to the Lord

in prayer if what she preaches isn't

good enough for me. Now I feel worse

for angrifying her than I do for

wanting to know the whole story about

the meaning of life. No wonder we die.

 

 

 

Pronouncement

 

At Sunday School they teach us all the dope

about God and Jesus and the Holy

Ghost and I guess I buy most of it but

sometimes I'm like Thomas, Doubting Thomas

--I'd like some evidence, something to cinch

the case that Jesus is the Son of God

and that's what I confessed to Miss Hooker,

she's our teacher, after class this morning,

I told her how I like the prayers and

the hymns, I've got a couple memorized,

and reminded her that I haven't missed

class in seven weeks, which is pretty damned

good for ten years old, responsible is

what that is, dutiful Miss Hooker says,

which I think means she agrees. Then she said

that if I didn't have faith it wouldn't

be religion, which kind of shut me up,

not that I was complaining. But one day

 

I'll have to die, same as anyone else,

and go see God to be judged, at least my

soul, so I sort of need to watch myself

because the next thing you know I could be

felled and then I'd wake up dead and then be

judged and if I'm too much a sinner then

I'll be sent to Hell. But I have a plan

--if that's how God pronounces me, guilty

I mean, of too many sins and never

getting saved--watch me lead the way there, to

Hell I mean, I mean that the angel won't

escort me but that I'll act as if I

want to go or at least that I know I

must and be just about ready to leap

 

into the Lake of Everlasting Fire

when the angel holds me back because God's

impressed with my eagerness even in

my condemnation and so He lets me

into Heaven instead. It's a long shot

but it just might work, to out-God God when

it comes to punishment anyway. I

didn't tell Miss Hooker this since she'd find

a way to spoil it--likely by pointing

out that God would know all the time what I

was up to and call my bluff. But at least

I'm thinking more divinely. Good for me.

Gale Acuff has had poetry published in Danse Macabre (23: 2009), Ascent, Ohio Journal, Descant, Poem, Adirondack Review, Coe Review, Worcester Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Arkansas Review, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Carolina Quarterly, South Dakota Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, and many other journals. He has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel (BrickHouse Press, 2004), The Weight of the World (BrickHouse, 2006), and The Story of My Lives (BrickHouse, 2008). He has also taught university English in the US, China, and the Palestinian West Bank.