One day, when I die, I’ll be feeling more
alive because I’ll be all-soul again,
like I was, they say, in the beginning,
that is, they say it at my Sunday School,
but anyway I won’t have a body
anymore, or I will but it will be
new, in Heaven we’ll all get new bodies,
that’s what my Sunday School teacher says, she’s
Miss Hooker and she adds that the Bible
says so, I forget where, somewhere inside,
but I’m not sure of going to Heaven,
I mean I might burn in Hell instead, but
as a soul, too, and I guess in a new
body, too, and there’s one way to find
out if it’s not in the Bible, I mean,
or the answer comes to me in prayer
but sometimes I forget to but the fact
is that I can’t live forever, on earth
I mean, my time will expire or God will
call me back, then judge me and send me to
Heaven or Hell, my soul anyway, and
I guess somehow that I’ll go on forever there,
whichever place I wind up and it’s just
that I’m pretty easily bored and sin
a lot for ten years old on earth so just
imagine what could happen if I start
acting up on high or down below, it
might be like Satan’s old rebellion and
Jesus will kick me down to Hell or if
I’m there already Satan might try to
kick me upstairs because he can’t torment
me enough and if he does and if I
rise only as far as earth again, watch
me hook up with my old body again,
and even if it’s still rotted all away
I might just enter where they buried me
and bring it all to life, a walking grave
with a tombstone for a cap, say, and stone
and soil for muscle and blood and coffin
my generous heart, oversized I mean
but also kind and when I’ve tromped down
and shaken off the dust and ash
I’m solely box the lid will prop and what
remains of me will escape its broken
wooden heart again and maybe return
to heaven to be judged again but all
I ever wanted was to have something
to do so that boredom couldn’t make me
get into mischief again and me dead
twice. It’s not fair and I don’t know why not.