I don’t want to die and I’m only ten

By Gale Acuff

years old so I'm probably not dying
any time soon but of course I
know that you never know, God might call me
back to Heaven a minute from now or
in another ten years or so but at 
church and Sunday School they say I must be
ready, my soul anyhow, to be judged
as good enough to remain in Heaven
or lousy enough to be sent to Hell
and it's always comes down to Heaven, that's
what they recommend as if it's ideal
even when I suggested once that if
I went to Hell I'd convert the sinners.
And of course I'd have to sin to get there.

Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in a dozen countries and has authored three books of poetry. His poems have appeared in Ascent, Reed, Arkansas Review, Poem, Slant, Aethlon, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Carolina Quarterly, Roanoke Danse Macabre, Ohio Journal, Sou'wester, South Dakota Review, North Dakota Quarterly, New Texas, Midwest Quarterly, Poetry Midwest, Adirondack Review, Worcester Review, Adirondack Review, Connecticut River Review, Delmarva Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Maryland Literary Review, George Washington Review, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Ann Arbor Review, Plainsongs, Chiron Review, George Washington Review, McNeese Review, Weber, War, Literature & the Arts, Poet Lore, Able Muse, The Font, Fine Lines, Teach.Write., Oracle, Hamilton Stone Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, Cardiff Review, Tokyo Review, Indian Review, Muse India, Bombay Review, Westerly, and many other journals.