Brave

Brave

I've been dead before--Miss Hooker says that

when I die I go to either Heaven

or Hell but dead is dead so I'm not scared

or at least I won't let her see it, I

love her and want her to marry me when

I'm old enough, I'm 10, and she's still not

too old, she's 25, and if she thinks

I'm the bravest little boy she ever

met and later the bravest teenager

and still later the bravest young adult

then she's bound to go for me, even fall

in love, the kind that makes for babies, I

don't know how yet but I expect to learn

and when I do know almost everything

that God does, except for all about death

but on the other hand I was nowhere

before I was born and don't remember

many of the details but how can death

be worse, just another beginning but

on the other side of life? I can't wait

to talk to God about how He gives us

too many mysteries to solve and no

one has at least until they're dead and that's

cheating. But if I go to Hell instead

I'll give Satan what God has given me, I

mean the bad stuff--I'll hit him where we live.

 

Gale Acuff

I have had poetry published in Ascent, Ohio Journal, Descant, Poem, Adirondack Review, Coe Review, WorcesterReview, Maryland Poetry Review, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Arkansas Review, Carolina Quarterly, South Dakota Review, Santa Barbara Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, and many other journals. I have 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).