~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Gale Acuff

One day I'll be so dead that there won't be

anything of me to identify

me left, that is if they dig me up and

examine me, exhumation it's called,

or maybe my bones will still be there and

clothes and shoes and belt buckle anyway

but as for the flesh of my dead body

and my soul if I have one nobody

will put a finger on it and I don't

count the bones but then maybe I should and

after Sunday School today I told my

teacher that one day they'll be all that's left

of me and that they'll make a skeleton

for death and my skull a place for death to

hang his hat and wear it, too. Well, she said.

When you're dead you're dead save for religion,

you go to the Afterlife, at least at

our church and Sunday School and never die

even though you're dead so make that never

die twice, that could be a catchy James Bond

title but anyway in Heaven or

Hell you go on eternally though Hell's

not the best place to be and isn't it

funny how on Earth you have to die but

even in Hell you live forever, which

is just as good as Heaven at least on

paper so when my Sunday School teacher

asked where I'll be spending Eternity

I said I don't know but it will never

end and then she smiled. Oh, but then she wept.

I guess when you die you're pretty much dead, 

I guess I'll find out someday when it's too

late and there's nothing left but wondering

what life is, or is that was, I'm not sure

what's with past, present, and future and how

they won't stay still while I try to work out

the meaning of life like I always will,

I guess, but one day like I say I'll be

dead and in the Afterlife but for how

long I don't yet know, if eternally

that seems how long I'm lasting now and at

church and Sunday School nothing ever stops

'til God stops it, I wish He'd stop it now,

for a spell anyway, then start again

when He's learned that nothing lasts forever

Gale Acuff has had poetry published in Ascent, Reed, Journal of Black Mountain College Studies, The Font, Chiron Review, Poem, Adirondack Review, Florida Review, Slant, Arkansas Review, South Dakota Review, Roanoke Review, and many other journals in over a dozen 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. Email: asadgale@yahoo.com