In Sunday School class I see Miss Hooker
\n–and God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost
\nthough I don’t really see them except in
\nMiss Hooker herself. That is, God made her
\nand Jesus saved her and the Holy Ghost
\ninspires her to be the best damn teacher
\nI ever had. And the most beautiful,
\nred hair and green eyes and all those freckles.
\nAnd she can tell a Bible story like
\nnobody’s business. I like the one where
\nMoses parts the Red Sea and Pharoah sends
\nhis charioteers across to slay them
\nbut the slaves cross over just in time and
\nthen the Sea folds in upon itself and
\nall the bad guys drown. The movie’s good, too.
\nBut Miss Hooker tells it like she was there.
\nI never thought I’d bite my nails over
\nthe Bible but I never thought I’d like<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God, either. He scares me. He’s too much like
\ndeath and I sure as Hell don’t want to die
\nbut if you’re going to go to Heaven
\nyou just about have to. I guess it’s like
\njumping into the pool when the water’s
\ntoo cold but if you’re going to swim then
\nthere’s no other way. Father jumped from planes
\nin the Big One, World War 2. I asked him
\nhow he was brave enough to do it. Well,
\nhe said, I’d gone to all that trouble to
\npack my parachute and it would have been
\na shame not to use it. Now he teaches
\ngeography, so there you go. He met
\nMother in Atlanta after the war.
\nMother was dancing professionally.
\nI ask her what kind of dances she did
\nbut she’s never told me. I ask Father<\/p>\n\n\n\n
but he just smiles. It’s more like a goofy
\ngrin. Then he takes off his eyeglasses and wipes
\nhis eyes and puts them on again, his glasses
\nI mean, and clears his throat and asks me, Son,
\ndid I ever tell you what I did in
\nthe war? After Sunday School is over
\nI’m just getting warmed up. Last Sunday I
\nwaited until my classmates left the room
\nand went up to Miss Hooker in her chair
\nwhere she was rearranging the bookmarks
\nin her Bible and said, Miss Hooker, I
\ngot something I wanna tell ya, and she
\nlooked up at me and into my eyes and
\nI mean with her eyes, too, and smiled and asked
\nWhat is it, Gale honey, so I looked down
\nas if I was saying the Lord’s Prayer,
\nleading the class in it, maybe, and saw<\/p>\n\n\n\n
my Sunday shoes, black and shiny and two
\nyears old. I only wear them once a week
\nso if I die as I’m walking back home
\nthey’ll be good enough to be buried in,
\nand said, I love you, but she took it wrong,
\nI meant Sweet Romance but she just meant love
\nlike you get from God and parents and aunts
\nand Santa and your dog and maybe your
\ncat and your favorite stuffed animal,
\nnot that I have one anymore, only
\na G. I. Joe, and he’s not a doll, he’s
\nsomething else. I forget. Then she stood up
\nand kissed me but not on the lips. Goodbye
\nI said, and turned and walked right out the door<\/p>\n\n\n\n
hating her guts. So what if I’m just 10
\nand she’s 25? We might’ve worked it out.
\nMaybe I should wait until I’m 16
\nand try again, though she’ll be halfway
\ndead, 31. That my mother’s age now.
\nSo I guess there’s more than one way to make
\na boy a man even though I wonder
\nwhat that other way is. That other way
\nhas something to do with having babies.
\nI wonder how that’s done. My folks don’t know
\nor they don’t want to say. It’s a secret.
\nI might ask Miss Hooker next week if I
\ncome back–she kind of embarrassed me or
\nmaybe she’s just playing hard to get so
\nthere’s a purpose for all my suffering.
\nLast night I dreamt I died and Miss Hooker
\nshowed up at my funeral and cried and
\ncried and sputtered, Gale, it was only you.
\nThen as I watched from Heaven the police
\ntook her to the pokey. I don’t know why.
\nThat’s when I woke up. And I’m still waking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in several countries and is the author of three books of poetry. He has taught university English in the US, China, and Palestine. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Sunday School class I see Miss Hooker –and God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost though I don’t really see them except in Miss Hooker herself. That is, God made her and Jesus saved her and the Holy Ghost inspires her to be the best damn teacher I ever had. And the most beautiful, … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-qV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1669"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1714,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669\/revisions\/1714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}