I don’t give a damn about Sunday School
today because Miss Hooker told us last
week that she wouldn’t be there, it seems she
has to go out of town, she’s my Sunday
School teacher so we’ll have a substitute
but I want the real thing so I’ll go back
next week and see the woman I love and
who will be my wedded wife one day, Miss
Hooker I mean, and then I’ll get to see
her red hair and green eyes and freckles when
-ever I want, I mean everyday
and at night she glows in the dark, I bet,
like red ornaments on the green Christmas
tree in our living room when it’s hooked up
and the little lights are freckles and I
get up early that morning and make noise
in the kitchen to wake my parents up
because I can’t go in there without them,
it’s kind of like I’m Baby Jesus and
need Joseph and Mary to be with me
but there are no cows or sheep or pigs or
chickens or donkeys, just my dog, or his
memory because he died two years ago and
rose again, I mean his soul, if he has
one, I asked Miss Hooker and first she said
No but then she saw my eyes fall to her
shoes so then she said Well, maybe, and I
looked up again and then she smiled and said
Well, of course, and that’s how I fell in love
for the first time, I mean with a woman
not Mother. So this was a sign unto
me. Right now I’m lying in bed, nothing
to sweat this morning because I’m skipping
church, too, but that doesn’t mean I don’t pray
for Miss Hooker’s safe return next Sunday,
then all will be as it was before, like
the Garden of Eden but more people
and some sin and regular school Monday
through Friday and my dog still dead and that’s
why I’m religious, we may be no good
down on earth but there’s a little Heaven
here and there if you can find it–if you
die for it you get the real thing one day.
I’d die for Miss Hooker. I’m dying now.
Conception
I don’t know anyone who loves me
like Miss Hooker, my Sunday School teacher,
unless it’s God but somehow He doesn’t
count, He’s way beyond me. Sure, He loves me
but so do my parents but somehow they
don’t rate much either, God bless ’em, they’re too
busy with jobs and each other and they
can’t give me what I want and neither can
God–well, He can but He doesn’t care to,
I guess. He never answers my prayers
and I have better luck with Santa Claus
though only once a year but that’s ten times
the luck I have with God. Probably more.
There’s my dog but he has the excuse that
he isn’t even human and maybe
God isn’t, either, but Miss Hooker says
that I was created in His image,
and every other person, too, so
maybe He’s confused with all the people
He’s created, He can’t keep ’em straight so
to be fair to everybody He won’t
answer any prayers and if He did
so for everybody He wouldn’t
have much power anymore, we’d all be
gods. That is, I guess He created me,
I don’t know where else I could’ve come from,
but I’m just 10 and have a right to be
ignorant, forget I’m in the fourth grade
and not exactly stupid, there’s just not
much in my head now. All I have is heart.
I think maybe I came from my parents
but I’m not sure and when I ask them
they either smile or grimace. If I ask
on Friday nights they look at each other
and maybe Father will say, Well, well, well,
wouldn’t you like to know, which means he won’t
tell me. Then he winks at Mother and I
look at her fast and she’s blushing, staring
at her hot dog like she’s never seen meat
before. And if I ask on Sunday through
Thursday sometimes he answers the moon, or
I dunno, or I wish to Hell I knew,
or look it up in your Funk and Wagnalls,
but we use Comptons and they don’t tell me,
or under a rock in the River Nile
but even I know that’s far, far away.
I asked Miss Hooker once and she told me
to ask my folks and I said I did but
they won’t tell me and I’m starting to think
that they don’t know but are too embarrassed
to confess it. She laughed. I’m not sure why.
I prayed to God about it but struck out.
I’d do better just to ask my dog and
I’ll be he knows but he can’t speak people,
only dog, which I don’t know. Cat neither
but we don’t have one of those anyway.
Miss Hooker’s an old lady, 25
I’d guess. When I grow up I’ll marry her
no matter that she’ll be older, too. Ask
me if I care. I don’t. When I’m her age
she’ll be 40, which is pushing death but
we could have a few good years together
and maybe even a few babies and
if I don’t know the skinny by then she
can fill me in and then maybe I’ll learn
how I was put together, too. I have
a clue or two: it helps to be married
and sleep in the same bed in the dark and
have the door shut, even locked, like my folks
do, and I think they even put something
over the keyhole so I can’t see in,
which I don’t. No, that’s a sin and a lie
–I tried to but all I saw was darkness.
And maybe you turn the radio on.
And maybe you giggle and sigh and moan
and then light cigarettes. I smell the smoke
clear up to my attic bedroom. Then you
whisper for a while and then you snore and
your wife goes to the bathroom and when she
comes back she wakes you up, or tries to. And
as near as I can figure, that’s how I
happened. I wish I could remember but
I was awfully young then. Smarter, too.
Biography
Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in a dozen countries and has authored three books of poetry. Gale has taught tertiary English courses in the US, PR China, and Palestine.