Gale Acuff: ‘Crush’ and ‘Bellyful’

Crush

I’m supposed to love everybody but
I hate my Sunday School teacher, she should
marry me when I’m old enough, I’m 10
to her 25 and by then she’ll be
even older than old but I don’t care
and I won’t care, she was meant for me
and vice versa, I know so because
I feel it right strongly, deep-down inside
and in my heart or at least my chest
and speaking of chests she has two, bosoms
they’re called and that’s straight out of the Bible
so it’s not dirty although it’s funny
and put it, or them, alongside freckles
and dimples and moles and red hair and green
eyes and if you haven’t got an angel
then there’s no God but of course there is so
like they say on TV The defense rests,
I mean that I’m defending our being
together, at least when I’m legal age,
I’d hate to take advantage of her and
when I’m positive about how to make
babies then I’ll be a man that way, too,
after Sunday School I told her so and
for a moment the fire went out of her
hair so she must’ve died for a moment

—I resurrected her but she thanked God.

Gale Acuff

Bellyful

In first grade Teacher says we have to
finish all the food on our lunchroom plates
but I hate green beans. I take my napkin
and scoop them up, then throw them on the floor.
When she comes back to check our plates she asks
Whose green beans are those on the floor? Who threw
them there? I say nothing, just stare at her.
If I confess, there will be punishment
and I don’t know what kind—I hate to be
spanked. I’m small for my age and so is my
butt. And not just spanked, paddled—that means with
a board and that sounds like it will hurt and
maybe even kill me and I’m only
six years old and even if I survive
it I might go bitter and live a life
of crime. I’m just learning to read and write
and count numbers the right way, in a row.
If I go to jail now I’ll be ashamed
to have my parents visit me in there.
I’ll probably cry. They’ll want to spank me
too. They’ll reach through the bars to get at me
when all I want to do is hold them close.
But I’m a big boy now—they’ve said so—I
go to school. Learn responsibility.
I’m on my way to becoming a good
citizen and a useful member of
of society. Responsibility.
Society. I wonder how they’re spelled
but I guess I’ll never learn. When my dog
does something wrong I say to him, Bad boy.
He drops his head and lowers his ears and
feels like sin, I guess. Like he’s let me down.
Now I know how he feels. Still, I love him.
A few minutes later he’s a good boy
again. I don’t know what to do. The food
here at lunchtime isn’t very good. Yuck.
And I can’t throw some under the table
everyday—one of the kids might squeal
or Teacher might catch me and if I ask
Mother and Father what to do they might
get mad. I’m a little afraid of them
although they’re almost always on my side.
I’d ask my sisters but they don’t like me
—I’m just a grubby little monkey. Or
my brother but he always says Drop dead
and that hurts my feelings. I’d ask at church
but I’m afraid that they’d send me to Hell
where I’d burn forever and even then
I’d be dead and there’s no future in that.
I hope we have something good tomorrow
for lunch—it may be my last one. Maybe
I can slip what I don’t like into my
pockets. I’ll have to be smooth, like James Bond.
Maybe one of my classmates will eat it.
Maybe Teacher will be sick and we’ll have
a substitute. Maybe the school will burn
down, or just the lunchroom—I like the rest.
Maybe the Commies will drop the Big One
and there won’t be any school at all. It’s
1966—late enough to be
the end of the world. I don’t want to die
but I don’t want to be paddled, either.
If I go to Hell it will serve me right.
Man does not live by bread alone, or beans.

Gale Acuff