SLAIN
Death is something we live with all the time
my Sunday School teacher says after class
and she could’ve said it before class, too,
I guess that’s her point or part of it and
for that matter she could’ve interrupt
-ed class to make it, but she didn’t, but
maybe by not doing that she really
did so, I’m ten years old and if I’d known
that life would be this complicated I
might not have ever signed up for it, not
that I did, that I remember, maybe
I should be a Sunday School teacher when
I grow up, if I ever do, even
a preacher. Either way life will kill me.
I DON’T WANT TO DIE BUT I’M A REASON
-able man even for ten years old so
I won’t fight it, that is I will but in
the end death wins though at church they tell me
it isn’t so, life everlasting does,
does win that is, you spend Eternity
more alive than when you were alive yet
you’re dead and that’s called a paradox, it
means something at least in two opposite
ways and I’ll never understand ’til I
am, am dead that is, or alive let’s say,
so after Sunday School today I asked
Why all the confusion–couldn’t God make
up His mind? Wouldn’t you know my teacher
laughed and cried and then both at once. Good grief.
AT THE END OF MY LIFE I DIE, WHICH MAKES
sense in a strange sort of way and I wish
I knew what it’s like over yonder, be
-yond life I mean, though of course in Sunday
School they tell us fourth-graders all about
it, streets of gold and a river of milk
or something like that but I’m allergic
to milk, I’m lactose-intolerant so
I asked my teacher after class what hope
there is for me and she said Don’t worry,
Dear, God won’t let it bother you, that’s why
it’s called Heaven so I said Yes ma’am, if
you say so but I’m afraid of heights, too,
I added, and she said Well, the Kingdom
of Heaven’s within you. I just can’t win.
