I don't want to go to Hell
when I die
by Gale Acuff
but people do and I'm a people,
too,
or a person anyway though
only
ten years old so should I die at
80
I'm just one-eighth a human
being now
in a way and learning what that
way is
or wanting to will take up most
of my
life I tell my Sunday School
teacher, who
laughs as clear as a bell or is
that clear
-ly but when she chimes my way I'm in love
with an angel and I told her so,
too,
I said Miss Hooker, you're an
angel
from Heaven and she laughed again and said
Well, no I'm not, Dear, but I'm happy that
you think so and happier even
that
I'm not an angel from the Bad
Place, then
I quickly observed Yes ma'am—then
you'd be
a demon, which would make me a
little
devil. Then 10 winked at 25, who
winked back—but somehow not to me,
just who
—whom?—I'm not sure but
bet he shaves and boasts
a manly voice and drives and
holds a job,
not just any old job but one
full-time
to boot—or maybe I'm describing
me
come the future, then later
seven-eighths
but she'll still be fifteen
years older no
matter how you figure it. I
started
to cry since I was pretty sure
that would
throw her arm around me. But she
has two.
Gale Acuff
has had hundreds of poems published in a
dozen countries and have authored three books of poetry. His poems have
appeared in Ascent, Reed, Arkansas Review, Poem, Slant, Aethlon, Florida
Review, South Carolina Review, Carolina Quarterly, Roanoke
Review, Danse Macabre, Ohio Journal, Sou'wester, South
Dakota Review, North Dakota Quarterly, New Texas, Midwest
Quarterly, Poetry Midwest, Adirondack Review, Worcester
Review, Adirondack Review, Connecticut River Review, Delmarva
Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Maryland Literary
Review, George Washington Review, Pennsylvania Literary
Journal, Ann Arbor Review, Plainsongs, Chiron
Review, George Washington Review, McNeese Review, Weber, War,
Literature & the Arts, Poet Lore, Able Muse, The
Font, Fine Lines, Teach.Write., Oracle, Hamilton
Stone Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, Cardiff Review, Tokyo
Review, Indian Review, Muse India, Bombay
Review, Westerly, and many other journals.
He has
taught tertiary English courses
in the U.S, PR China, and Palestine.
