Was, Is
I won't be long before I go to Hell
because one I have to die and it
won't be long and when it happens I'll think
Now that it's done it didn't take so long
at all, I mean if I can still think then,
maybe I can because my soul will go
on after my body dies, they swear to
that in Sunday School, Miss Hooker does, she's
my teacher and I guess she ought to
know all about life and death or at least
enough to learn us kids about it, life
and death that is and I know a little
already, my dog died last month and it
wasn't pretty, he got run over on
the turnpike, we were coming home from school,
I mean my classmates and I, on the bus
and Terry Bettis turned to me and asked
Ain't that your mutt dead on the asphalt there
and sure enough it was or he was so
after I got home it was near enough
to walk back a ways and study him and
he wasn't just dead but too dead to bring
back, bring back to life I mean, but I'd rolled
the wheelbarrow out there with me and my
Boy Scout shovel but I've never been one,
a Scout that is, not a shovel though I've
never been one of those, either, and scooped
and scraped Caesar off the tar and his eyes
still open and his tongue lolling out and
blood all over it but there's always blood
in a body, you just don't see it much
and Caesar's had escaped, I had to leave
a big old stain of it out on the turn
-pike and after I rolled us home I dug
a hole myself and buried him myself
and I'm only ten years old and Father
wasn't home from work yet and Mother, she
doesn't need to see any life dead, don't
ask me why, I don't exactly know, and
I knew that I was older because I
wanted to crawl down in the grave with him,
Caesar, and pull the dirt over the top
of us but it's not like it's a blanket
and we'd just be sleeping for one night, no,
what it was was and is the sleep of death
and one day it will come to me or I
will come to it or we'll meet halfway, may
-be it's the same thing and maybe even
I'll embrace it, that's a fancy word for
hug and it me and maybe I'll really
start to live and maybe Caesar's up in
Heaven, not that Heaven's Earth but somewhat
better, maybe there's no comparison
although I just made one, I guess I'll find
out but maybe it will be the kind of
finding out that doesn't matter. Make mine death.
Taking the Word
Yes, Jesus loves me, Mother sings--I
love her, too, but probably not the same
way, or some of it but I'm a man, too,
not that Jesus wasn't but I don't think
that He lusted, not the way I will when
I'm a man, I'm only 10, Miss Hooker's
my Sunday School teacher and 25
and one day she'll be mine, we';; go on our
honeymoon, too, and do something special,
I'm not too sure what that is but I've heard
rumors that you do like your folks do, turn
off the light and lock the door, or maybe
lock the door first and be sure the curtains
are drawn, drawn means closed, but if not stand clear
of the window or somebody will see
what you and yours are doing naked in
there--I'd begin by counting Miss Hooker's freckles
so I'd better pack a flashlight and kill
some time that way until she takes over,
that is if I don't know the ropes by then,
say when I'm 18 to her 33.
Funny what you think about in Sunday
School, Miss Hooker up front and leading us
in "Jesus Loves Me," she even looks up
to the sky, the ceiling really, and so
do I. After we've finished she wonders
Did you get a glimpse of Heaven, children?
Some of us say yes, some just move our lips
but don't really make a sound except for
the sound that moving lips make but that's not
the point, I guess, that moving lips make sounds
I mean. And after class today I hung
around to help stack hymnals and straighten
desks and just when Miss Hooker's near-ready
to thank me and to say that she'll see me
next week, I come out with it: I'm better
than Jesus in bed, and I don't even
know what it means, and instead of making
it known to me Miss Hooker pulls me down
to the linoleum floor, it needs sweeping,
but that's not the point, either, and recites
"The Sinner's Prayer," one arm around me
but I wish both were, maybe one day, and
after Amen we rise and she tells me
Nobody's that good, Gale--now run on home.
I don't know what she means but I'll take her
word for it. At least until we're married.
Best Man
No one loves Jesus more than Miss Hooker,
my Sunday School teacher, at least think
so, think that nobody loves Jesus more
than she does, she talks about Him in class,
Sunday School that is, for the fully fifty
minutes or so, how He shed His precious
blood, died she means, was murdered she means, was
crucified she means, so that folks like me,
if we believe that He's the Son of God
--I'm not saying is, I'm not saying was,
I guess I'm saying both--then when we die
we really don't--oh, our bodies do but
the rest of us, I mean our souls, they fly
up to Heaven to dwell there forever,
forever as in eternally, and
it's all there in the Good Book, Miss Hooker
says so anyway. But she also says
that for ten years old to her twenty-five
I sin too much, and even a little
is too much and, therefore, it behooves me
to get my soul saved so tat when I die
I don't wake up in Hell, my condemned soul,
anyway, to be tortured forever,
or something as bad, that's the skinny, I
fall asleep sometimes so early Sunday
mornings and miss a few details but I
always get that I'm in love with her and
one day, if God will swing it for me if
I cut back on my sinning, we'll get married,
I mean Miss Hooker to me, which would be
a miracle and if God can pull one
of 'em off then why not a couple, please
Miss Hooker no end by tapping Jesus
for best man and I won't rub it in by
bragging that she prefers me over Him,
not to His face anyway. In a dream
sent to me, one of those times I fell
asleep in Sunday School and Miss Hooker
had to rouse me and then kept me after
class, just like in regular school but she
can't fool me, she's preparing the way of
our courtship. I'm going to be a bridegroom.
Yank
Miss Hooker at Sunday School tells us to
be ready to die at every second
of our lives so we won't go to Hell when
we do, when we die that is, we're only
ten years old are most of us and I guess
it's never too early to start, to start
to get ready for death that is but I
need to get my soul saved before I do,
before I die that is so that when I
do, die that is, I won't wind up in Hell
with fire and gnashing of teeth, what's gnashing
if not like grinding like Father does, he
grinds his teeth that is and maybe at night
when he's sleeping with Mother but for sure
while he's watching baseball on TV or
football or basketball or Wide World of
Sports or ice hockey or any other
matches, games, or contests, he's a fool for
'em even if the Bible says that you
go to Hell for calling someone a fool,
I forget where but it's in there, I swear
--and swimming naked in boiling oil, so
naked that not only don't you have clothes
on but you don't even have skin, blood's skin
down there and I sure don't want any of
that but it's funny how while you're not dead
yet you forget about the punishment
and torture and torment and so on to
come, you just want to have some fun and that's
where sin comes in, without some sinning how
can a soul enjoy life? But this morning
in Sunday School Miss Hooker asked us to
raise our hands if we hadn't gotten saved
since the last time we saw her so I raised
mine and I'm damned if I wasn't the sole
kid in the room to do so and I tried
to yank it down as fast as I could, my
hand that is, but Miss Hooker was too quick
for me so the next thing I know I'm on
my knees on the linoleum of our
trailer-classroom and I can even feel
the thin plywood underneath and around
me are my classmates and Miss Hooker with
them and they're praying different prayers and
Miss Hooker's is the loudest, it's the Lord's
Prayer and when she's got that all spat out
she's on to one of her own and it's all
I can do not to jump up and hit the door run
-ing, I mean I'd be running, not the door
but instead I endured all the saving,
you could say it was a sacrifice, my
Cross to bear that is, so when Miss Hooker
shouted Amen with everybody, me
included, she parted the sea of my
classmates and came to me and raised me up
--not that I needed help, I held her hand
just like the Beatles wanted to do and
did and on my record player love goes
around and around and around until
the song is over but it never is
and then Miss Hooker asked me how I felt
so I said Middlin' dizzy and then fell
so that she'd have to catch me, she caught me
good, she's pretty strong for 25 and
high heels but not too high and you can't see
no toes. The Hell of it is that I got
saved and no man knoweth. I'll never tell.
A Stray
I've just buried my dog and it's a good
thing to stop and lean on the shovel and
feel that what's been taken from me frees me
for companionship with a memory
tomorrow. I pulled Caesar from the road
this morning. He must have died while I slept.
What did I dream last night? I don't recall.
My dreams, when I remember, are color,
but loss seems black and white. I know better
but that's grief for you. He was a good dog
but here in the country we don't neuter
and I'll bet he tried to cross because some
bitch was in heat--they couldn't help themselves.
Sometimes I wish that I couldn't, either,
but it's right and wrong that have mastered me.
I'm only 14 and still a virgin
but not immaculate. One day I'll have
a woman--or, more likely, she'll have me
--and we'll do the act but I'll spill my seed
before it can take root and so I'll cheat
natural selection. Or maybe not.
It's hot out here and I forgot my hat,
my baseball cap, the one he used to chew
until I taught him better. What was it
I taught him? Not to be an animal
if we're going to get along? I wish
I'd buried it with him, the bill between
his teeth, so I could have sent him onward
wherever it is that dead friends go, in
the afterlife of the past. I can't move
until I know why I was born--the how
I learned in Sex Education one year,
not that I didn't feel it coming on.
On the other hand, he might have done it
and was on his way back and not going
--from the way he lay there on the highway
I couldn't say. And now I'll never know.
In success or failure he looked the same.
Who knows but that a pup will wander in
one day, having navigated the lanes,
a miracle of instinct. I'll know him
by Caesar's markings, or some of them, and
then I'll take him back to where he belongs,
if I can find the place, and if not, bring
him home again and take my chances
that love won't wander twice before I do.
Gale Acuff: I have had poetry published in Ascent, McNeese Review, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Poem, Adirondack Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Florida Review, Slant, Poem, Carolina Quarterly, Arkansas Review, South Dakota Review, Orbis, and many other journals. I have authored three books of poetry, all from BrickHouse Press: Buffalo Nickel, The Weight of the World, and The Story of My Lives.