by Gale Acuff
I don’t want to die but I don’t want to
live, neither, so what’s left I ask my Sun
-day School teacher but she just folds her arms
and shakes her head and frowns as she looks down
on me, which she has to do anyway
because she’s 25 to my 10 but
now she’s looking even down-er and I
feel even smaller so then I tell her
that I’ll pray about it and next week when
I’m back in Sunday School my attitude
will be changed and she’ll be happy again
but then she starts to cry–that should be me
shedding tears and I’d tell her so but she’d
say that tears are like Christ’s blood. I can’t win.
Mr. Acuff’s work has appeared in Ascent, Chiron Review, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Poem, Adirondack Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Florida Review, Slant, Nebo, Arkansas Review, South Dakota Review, and many other journals. He has authored three books of poetry, all from BrickHouse Press: Buffalo Nickel, The Weight of the World, and The Story of My Lives.
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