“I don’t want to die when I die, I want”

to live forever in Heaven and some

-times I don’t want to die at all but at

Sunday School our teacher warns that all folks

have to croak but that we’re not born to it, it

was Adam and Eve and Satan-as-serpent

who befell us and if it was up to

God, which it is, then everybody would

enter into the Kingdom of Heaven

and at some churches they even swear that

Jesus died so that no one goes to Hell

at all, not even for a second, but

we’re tougher than that and one truth is clear:

To get eternal life you have to die.

Maybe that’s not fair but it is funny.

“I’m going to go to Hell when I die,”

not that I really want to but I sin

a lot for ten years old and like it fine

so I’m starting to wonder if I’m one

of those poor slobs who’s predestined to sin

and sin practically until the Day

of Judgement when Jesus returns and then

get sent down to Hell to burn forever

not to mention eternally but then

if that’s so, if I can’t help but sin up

a storm, maybe Jesus will rescue me

before I’m barely singed and let me in

-to the Kingdom of Heaven and tell me

You’ve been a splendid bad example for

other folks. But I knew it all the time.

Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in a dozen countries and have 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, 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.