Peek
Updated: Jun 13, 2021
By Gale Acuff -
In Sunday School today Miss Hooker said that when it's time for me to die it's God's will and there's no getting around that so the best I can do is to be ready at all times for Him to take me away and what's more be sure that at least I'll know where I'll be spending eternity, in Heaven or Hell and Miss Hooker's big on the first because she says she doesn't want me to suffer, which I would in Hell, fire and brimstone and torture and who knows what all Satan has in store for me so what I have to do is to get my soul saved but my problem is that I like to sin or just enough to have a little fun and make life and blessedness less boring and that's what I told Miss Hooker after class, Can't I just sin until I can see over the edge the doom that's lying there and waiting for me to crash down on it since I'm smart enough to step away on time before I fall in? That's when we got down on our knees, it was her idea, to pray about my attitude problem, that's what she called it, she took her glasses off and on the linoleum we were on the same level and we closed our eyes but I peeked, it seemed a bit like sin so I didn't want to miss out but even though I'm 10 to Miss Hooker's 25 I almost fell into the top of her dress, or to confess the truth for once, jumped but at that very moment she opened her eyes and said Amen, I mean at once, which was both good timing and bad, mostly bad even though if had died right then it would've been good.
But that's religion.
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 a dozen countries. He has authored three books of poetry: "Buffalo Nickel," "The Weight of the World," and "The Story of My Lives."
He has taught university English courses in the US, China, and Palestine.