I don't want to die but it's coming say

Gale Acuff

my church and Sunday School and I don't know
where or when or how but I do know why,
they say, something about Adam and Eve
bringing death in to the world and ditto
Satan and so I was born doomed unless
I snag eternal life in Heaven, life
after death they call it, and life after
life to boot--I wish they'd make up their minds
or God would His but anyway this morning\
after Sunday School class I asked why I
was ever born if I'm only going
to lose life someday and was answered We
covered that in class this morning, Gale, weren't
you listening? I must have been dead then.

I walk home from Sunday School, too far it's

Gale Acuff

not and about the same way here as there,
my spirit uplifted after class and church
service but mainly because I'm starving,
I need lunch and I feel a little faint
so I saw in a cloud this morning God
but He was the cloud itself, the maker
and the thing He made and of course
the breeze blew it apart but behind it
the sun and that was God, too, and when I
looked down to avoid a puddle I saw
me in the muddy water and thought There's
Satan so of course I stepped right on it
and looked back to see it come together
without a face. I made my unmaking.

I'm going to die one day and so are

Gale Acuff

you I tell my Sunday School teacher when
class is over and we're alone and God
won't save us and the best He can do is
let us dwell in Heaven if He likes us
but to do that then first we have to die,
die to live eternally and what's wrong
with this picture is I don't want to die
at all and neither should you and so will
you marry me when I'm of legal age
(I'm 10 now, you know) because marriage is
the last stand against God's unfairness--that's
why Adam and Eve are so important
but before she could reply I said good
-bye and headed home. The deadline's next week.

 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, Carolina Quarterly, Roanoke 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.

Gale has taught tertiary English courses in the US, PR China, and Palestine.