Poetry. I don't want to die but if I do, by Gale Acuff. Image: the silhouette of a young boy raising his hand in front of a desk behind which stands a woman smoking and a Christian cross on the wall.

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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