I don't want to die but if i do
I hope not to burn in Hell forever but
burn in Heaven, be on fire for Jesus
as our Sunday School teacher says it,
burning the very best way she sings out
so Sunday after church I returned to
our classroom, empty then but for God and
Jesus and the Holy Ghost and me and
Miss Hooker and the Flag and Washington
and Lincoln, and caught her smoking Salems
as she was stacking our hymnals and I
didn’t know what to say, smoking’s a sin
and fetches Hell faster than anything
save ladies’ naked bosoms and butt-cracks
on refrigerator repairmen and
Maxim and bikini catalogs and
Victoria’s Secret and Supergirl
if her skirt’s too short and Power Girl if
her chests get drawn too big and round—I know
a lot about evil to be so young
and could probably teach her but she says
before I can say I’m back again first
Sometimes my cigarette smoke reminds me
of the torments of Hell—I don’t want to
forget, then extinguishes her Salem
on the bottom of a store-brand sardines
can. Cats like sardines I offer, and so
do ten-year-old boys, smiling because I
caught her but forgive her to save my soul.
Gale Acuff
Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in a dozen countries and has authored three books of poetry. His poems have appeared in Ascent, Reed, Arkansas Review, Poem, Slant, Aethlon, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, and many other journals.
Gale has taught tertiary English courses in the US, PR China, and Palestine.
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