I think that I have and I'm only ten
years old, ten years isn't much forever
at all of course and in science class at
regular school time is relative but
in Sunday School it's pretty absolute
and is winding down to the end of days
says my teacher and nobody knows
exactly when that will be but I need
to get ready not just to die but for
the end of the world so I asked her what
the difference is since when I'm dead the world
might as well be, too, and she said Let us
pray, which means on the floor and I have bad
knees but I'll sacrifice just to see hers.

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. He has taught tertiary English courses in the US, PR China, and Palestine.