I’ll never tell my sister: I saw
you
through the keyhole of your bedroom
door when
I was 10 and you were 16 and you
sat on your bed, wearing only your
bra,
the first I’d ever seen not hanging
from
a clothesline, or on a headless, armless
woman in a department store. And
thought
If I have any sense I won’t reveal
this moment to anyone--let it be
our secret and not even a secret
that we share because I know and
you don’t.
To my credit I never looked again,
but maybe that’s what guilt is,
just one deed
and something to think about,
second-sight
aplenty. That was forty years
ago.
In last night’s dream I saw me
seeing you
again--I mean I saw me seeing you
for the first time since I saw my
secret.
Now I’m squealing on me for what I
saw.
I sneaked up behind me peeping into
your room and cleared my throat and
the boy turned
and saw the look on my face. Shame
on you,
I hissed. I know, he
whispered. But just see.
***
Kibosh
Miss Hooker, I love you, I say in my
sleep and meanwhile I'm holding her
close but
it's only the pillow, soft and
mushy
like she is, or like I like to
think she
is, mushy that is, like a
marshmallow
and she won't hold me back
nor engulf me,
that's a word I learned in regular
school,
not Sunday School where she's my
teacher and
I love her as much as do God but
if I tell her so she'll holler at
me
Thou blasphemer, and I wouldn't blame her,
I like it when she hollers at me,
say
when I screw up the Lord's Prayer
like I
did this morning when she called on
me to
recite it--I flubbed how it goes
halfway
to the end and my classmates
giggled but
she put the kibosh on that, so
maybe
she loves me anyway, I mean real
love
between husbands and wives, forget
I'm 10
to her 25, love will find a way,
that's what God's for and not so
much Nature
but anyway when I grow up I'll come
back to Sunday School and say hello
and
maybe propose and if she turns me
down
I'll ask and ask until she caves
in, knock
and it shall be opened. Just by kissing.
***
Nailing It
In the end I finally get to see
God, the end of the world I mean,
or is
that that the end of everything, I
forget,
but Miss Hooker, my Sunday School
teacher,
should know, knowing all about the
Bible,
that's her job, or one of them, the
other
is to save my soul from Hell and
she's done
a pretty fair job so far but at
last
it will be up to me to keep me from
fire although Jesus already died
for my sins--Miss Hooker says that
if I'm
bad enough I'll go there
anyway. So
what does God look like, I asked her after
class this morning. She
answered, Remember
that we're made in His image, and I asked
Has He got red hair, green eyes,
and freckles
like you do, and then she smiled. Verily.
***
Shut
Every night before I fall asleep
I pray to God and Jesus, too, that
They
will let me marry Miss Hooker when
I
grow up, she's 25 to my only
10 but just wait a few years and
watch me
catch up, kind of, still be fifteen
years back
but at least mature enough for
marriage
by numbers anyway, and though
she'll be
getting to old to be young enough
we'll
have a few good years together and
make
some babies and have some fun,
whatever
sort of fun married people have, my
folks
don't have a lot to say to each
other
but then there's the nighttime when
we're all in
our beds and so are Mother and
Father
and Miss Hooker, though she sleeps
somewhere else,
who knows what goes on when their
doors are shut
and sometimes locked, at least on
Friday nights
and sometimes Saturdays, too, and
it's dark
all night long and they sleep in
the same bed,
my parents I mean? Something tells
me that
I came out of that dark place one
morning
and--behold--here I am ten years
later
and wondering if I'll ever go back
to what my parents were before they
made
me. That's why I'm religious.
That's why there's
Sunday School. I don't know any
better.
***
Attention to Detail
I hope Miss Hooker goes to Heaven
like
she keeps saying she wants
to--she's big on
God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost
and
she's my Sunday School teacher,
nobody
I know or even don't
comes nearer to
God so I hope she finally gets to
meet Him, I'll bet He's heard lots
about her
but of course He made her after all
and
with a lot of attention to detail,
red hair and green eyes and
freckles, I mean
Miss Hooker. I don't know what God
looks like
but He'll have to go some to
out-fine her.
Me, I'll be going to Hell, I guess,
she
tells me so herself every Sunday,
how if I keep sinning and don't get
saved
even though I'll still sin but not
as much
and not so heinously, I'll go to
Hell
and be tortured and Don't
say I didn't
warn you. She did. And the rest of the
class
--she warned the whole lot of us
but wouldn't
it be something if when I land in
Hell
I'll find her there? I wonder if
she'll say
I told you so. Boy, will my face be red,
as red as her hair going up in
flames
but maybe she won't be able to see,
my red face, I mean, for all the
fire and
blood and brimstone, whatever that
is. Then
it'll probably hit me that she's
just
as embarrassed as I am. But I won't
rub it in. I'll forgive her. That's
righteous.
***
Terminal Ellipsis
Say I'm dead. So I'm in Heaven or
Hell
like they tell me at Sunday School
and if
Heaven then life is good even
though I
had to lose mine to gain it, life I
mean,
and Hell is bad, fire and
brimstone, also
known as sulfur, and torture and
torment
and so on, I'm in one of two places
but in a spot whichever one it is,
ha ha, because I think in either
one,
the Good as well as the Bad, I'd
wish that
I was still kicking even though I'd
know
that one day I'd die, I'd have
appetites
and desires that really signify,
such
as tacos and pizza and caramel
popcorn and comic books and Three
Stooges
and Ford Mustangs and Triumphs and
pretty
girls at regular school and church,
too, and
a new bicycle for X-mas and no
school on ice-storm days and every
week my
allowance on time and without
chintzing
and Playboy magazine
when I can reach
it at the top of the magazine rack
in the drug
store and Esquire and Saga and Argosy,
too, and Mad and Cracked and Sick and
ice cream
in at least thirty-one flavors and
no rules against mixing 'em and
Mother
and Father go to bed early Fridays
and Saturdays and leave the
Magnavox
to me and my dog, I mean when they
fetch
me one, and the B I
actually
scored on the English test last
week, it kept
me from failing fourth grade again
but here
I am with God and Jesus and the
Ghost
and saints and about a jillion
angels
of all sorts of ranks, and harps
and halos,
if I didn't know better I'd say
that
I'm dwelling in Hell and not
Heaven. Hey . . .
***
Gale Acuff has had poetry published in Ascent, Reed, Poet Lore, Chiron Review, Cardiff Review, Poem, Adirondack Review, Florida Review, Slant, Nebo, Arkansas Review, South Dakota Review, Roanoke Review, and many other journals in eleven countries. He has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel, The Weight of the World, and The Story of My Lives.
Gale has taught university English courses in the US, China, and Palestine.
No comments :
Post a Comment
We welcome your comments related to the article and the topic being discussed. We expect the comments to be courteous, and respectful of the author and other commenters. Setu reserves the right to moderate, remove or reject comments that contain foul language, insult, hatred, personal information or indicate bad intention. The views expressed in comments reflect those of the commenter, not the official views of the Setu editorial board. рдк्рд░рдХाрд╢िрдд рд░рдЪрдиा рд╕े рд╕рдо्рдмंрдзिрдд рд╢ाрд▓ीрди рд╕рдо्рд╡ाрдж рдХा рд╕्рд╡ाрдЧрдд рд╣ै।