Changde, Hunan, China

Gale Acuff

 

Travels and Teaching

 

Gale Acuff has taught in several English Departments in the U.S.A. (Texas Tech, West Virginia University, LSU-Baton Rouge, Tennessee Tech, North Carolina State) as well as in China and the Palestinian West Bank.

He has also published his poetry in various periodicals, including Ascent, Ohio Journal, Santa Barbara Review, South Dakota Review, Maryland Poetry Review, and many other American journals.

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Quitter

 

 

 

They say if I don't quit smoking I'll die.

You weren't born with a cigarette in hand,

they huff. True enough. But my mother smoked,

and while she was pregnant--in the '50s,

when doctors on TV testified that

smoking aids the digestion, calms the nerves.

So it's in my blood, is smoking. Father

smoked, too, but when he was my age, cut back

to one an hour. Not Mother--she never

betrayed addiction. Now I cough up sludge

--I'm cleaning out my system, I say, bring

-ing up what's foul and leaving my lungs fair.

And I always pass the chest X-ray. Tried

nicotine gum. Tried the patch. Tried the pills.

It's not the drug I want, it's the sucking

something solid down to the butt-end and

watching it change, blow by blow, to spirits

that drift and disappear. I can't puff rings

but see in exhalations what children

find in clouds--a little while ago, my

mother and father. They were younger, too,

before I was born, and before they learned

the habit. To be sure, it's a bad one,

but it's comforting, and it kills the time,

 

so what am I waiting for? I'll light up.

I'll probably die of cancer, or heart

disease, or both, but I'll die anyway,

though perhaps healthier--still breathing when

I go. And I don't want to die. Ever.

Then there's the damage done by second-hand

smoke--my parents again, come back to haunt. But

I have no children, so I breathe easy.

A member since March 2007.

 

All text © Gale Acuff.

All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced without written permission from Gale Acuff.

Books:

 

The Weight of the World. (2006, poetry) BrickHouse Press, Baltimore, MD, USA.

 

Buffalo Nickel. (2004, poetry) BrickHouse Press, Baltimore, MD, USA.

 

 

Find The Weight of the World here on Amazon.com

 

 

 

Ad Patrem

 

 

I'm sick. Again. I'm missing school. I walk

there and home again, when I'm well--we live

just a few hundred yards from the school-grounds.

I can hear the other children playing

at recess, and wish that I could be there,

running and jumping and kicking and swinging.

I wonder what we had for lunch today

--sometimes it's good, and if you clean your plate,

you get a piece of cheese. I can't stomach

food now, however--I have a virus

or the flu and barely make it downstairs,

to our one bathroom for six people,

to throw up. My bedroom's in the attic.

The ceiling is an upside-down V, or

an A without a cross-bar, if you like.

When Father gets home, he'll stump up the stairs,

all thirteen of 'em, to sit on the side

of my bed and ask me how I am. He

puts his palm to my forehead, then around

my neck. My sister almost died and he

wants to be sure that I don't. He hasn't

even taken off his suit yet, didn't

stop anywhere else in the house when he

came home; he stopped his car in front of the

garage and opened the door--that's my job,

I do it for him, I invented it,

it wasn't a chore but I made it one

and it's not really that but a duty

I feel I have to do and I do it

 

because I love God--and drove the car in.

Then he walked out onto the driveway and

closed the door. Then he came in the house and

into the hallway and through the living

room and then the dining room and turned right.

Instead of going straight to his bedroom,

he turned right again and came up the stairs,

which he only climbs when I'm sick. Let's see

how you feel tomorrow, he says. He gets

up and says, Well, I'd better head downstairs.

Okay, I say. Thanks for checking on me.

Oh, you're welcome, Son, he says. You know that.

Then he walks through the door and turns right and

clumps down the stars. I pick up Superboy

to see if Lana Lang has guessed yet who

he is. Clark Kent, of course--the Boy of Steel,

in slacks and a sweater and spectacles.

I'm too dizzy to look deeper, yet I

 

close my eyes and think about where I'll be

when I'm grown, and what I'll do, and my

wife and children, and if we'll have a dog,

and where we'll live, and if I'll go to Heaven

when I die--I'll try hard: I want to. Where

is it, exactly? Up past the ceiling,

I'm sure. Farther than any stairs can reach,

and no having to come back down again.

 

If I'm well tomorrow, I'll go to school.

I'll feed the dog and take out the trash and

fetch the newspaper and open the door

of the garage and turn around to see

 

Father smiling through the green steering wheel.

I'll step out of the way and he'll roll in

and, when he joins me on the driveway, I'll

touch him, as he sometimes allows. He'll say,

I see you're better today. Sure, I'll say.

I'll want to ask him about Heaven but

it can wait until after dinner.

After dessert. After his cigarette

and coffee. Is there really such a place,

I'll ask. Well, he'll say, I sure as Hell hope so.