Just Once I'd Like to Live Eternally
/Gale Acuff
In Sunday School today Miss Hooker said
that we've all got to die sometime and God
alone knows when and when it's time to go
it's time to go, what's waiting is Heaven
or Hell, she says, and that the Bible says
so, too. I don't want to die but I guess
I will when my time comes, I don't like to
fight and I'm small for 10 and get beat up
a lot anyway but just once I'd like
to live forever, on earth I mean, there's
a lot to like about it and as for
eternal life with God in Heaven, if
it's so
eternal
then can't it wait 'til
I'm really done with my life on earth? I should
tell Miss Hooker how I feel but I'm none
too brave, I'm in love with her and want to
marry her one day and she's 25
and 25 take away 10's 15
and that seems pretty eternal to me,
but maybe I can catch up in a few
years, when I'm 18 to her 33
and I won't look too young and she won't look
too old and we'll have a few babies and
raise a family and then she'll die first
and I'll join her later and then our kids
if we're all good and don't wind up in Hell,
which I might because I guess I question
God a lot or at least Miss Hooker. If
God wants me to go to Heaven then why
can't He make what's good down here on earth last
forever? After Sunday School today
I asked Miss Hooker that, I was hungry
and my stomach was growling and my mind
wasn't quite right and you would've thought that
I'd slapped her--she fell back into her plastic
blue chair and her mouth went round like a full
moon or the sun when you look at it for
just a second or two to see through to
its heart and make sure that it's all there though
you know it can blind you but still you have
to see with your own eyes. I looked away
but when I looked back she'd closed it again
and I wanted to kiss it. And her, too.
Gale Acuff has had poetry published in Ascent, Chiron Review, McNeese Review, Adirondack Review, Weber, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Carolina Quarterly, Arkansas Review, Poem, South Dakota Review, and many other journals. He has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel (BrickHouse Press, 2004), The Weight of the World (BrickHouse, 2006), and The Story of My Lives (BrickHouse, 2008). Gale has taught university English in the US, China, and the Palestinian West Bank.
