One day when I’m dead I’ll be alive is
how they put it at church and Sunday School
and sometimes I believe and sometimes I don’t
and for the times I don’t then if I die
during I’ll wake up dead in Hell but for
those times when I do then I’m guessing that
I live forever in Heaven instead
of burning and burning and burning in
Hell and burning some more, never burning
out, kind of like that burning bush but that’s
not the same burning as there is in Hell
or is it, when I ask Miss Hooker to
clear these matters up for me after class
we’re usually fallen to our knees
in prayer and she’s usually who’s
doing the talking, the praying any
-way, while I listen with my eyes shut, when
I’m not peeking, that is, she’s awfully
pretty for 25 and I’m only
10 so she’s old and my head bowed and hands
folded and by the time it’s finished
and I pull my praying hands apart my
palms are wet, sweaty I guess, and sometimes
they make a sound like a kitten pooting,
not that I’ve ever heard that before nor
smelled it for that matter but it’s not half
bad and by the time we’re on our feet I
confess I feel better, God touches me
but not really how Miss Hooker’s hoping
for and I’m feeling wiser because God
doesn’t want me to believe in God and
I sort of get to have belief and dis
-belief at the same time, contradiction
is what it is or call it religion
or imagination or the super
-natural but for Miss Hooker it’s my
weekly dose of the Holy Ghost and one
day she’ll be dead, too, but I wouldn’t change
that even if I could. Or I couldn’t.
