December 7, 2022
Nobody lives forever and at church
and Sunday School they're lucky, I'm told, they
to Heaven if they've been good but Hell
if bad so maybe they're lucky only
fifty-fifty, that seems fair to me and
I'm ten years old but if I died right now
I'd to go Hell for sure, I'm a sinner
like we all are because of Adam and
Eve but I'm worse than most or will grow to
be if you can call that growing, I guess
it is, and growing is a slow death, I
was born dying you might say, no wonder
I swipe Milk Duds from the 5 & 10 and
cheat on quizzes at school and when the plate
comes 'round to me in church I count the change.
​
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© the author
by Gale Acuff
Gale Acuff's poems have appeared in multiple journals including 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, and Adirondack Review. He has taught tertiary English courses in the United States, China, and Palestine—where he currently sits on the faculty at Arab American University.