back, even that he's killed me off and that's

a part of His Divine Plan is how it's

put to us ten-year-olds at Sunday School

and we don't have much power being kids

or maybe I mean that we don't use it

right and so it's hard to disagree with

authority, anyway, with other 

religious folks that is, so I just smile

and let 'em prattle, I'm supposed to love

folks who hate me, and God, Who bumps us off

--all I want to do is live forever

and I don't mean time-wise, eternally

in the time I have left is what I mean.

Like digging a hole deeper than it's wide.

     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, Journal of Black Mountain College Studies, The Font, Chiron Review, Poem, Adirondack Review, Florida Review, Slant, Arkansas Review, Maryland Literary Review, North Dakota Quarterly, South Dakota Review, Roanoke Review, War, Literature & the Arts, and many other journals.