I don’t want to die but of course I must

I don’t want to die but of course I must

By Gale Acuff

and me only ten years old and other
-wise in perfect health but there’s no more per
-fect health than when you get in the Afterlife
I guess, ha ha, forget that you’re dead there
but maybe that’s what death is, perfect some
-how though probably not the actual
dying part that leads unto death and I
have to die, like I say, I just don’t want
to, I want to live forever and I
don’t mean merely eternally but more
like immortally, I mean here on Earth
where I know what the score is and I wish
most of the time I never have to leave
at least ’til my team wins the World Series.

Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in over a dozen countries and is the author of three books of poetry. He has taught tertiary English courses in the US, China, and Palestine.

Justine Backlund is an illustrator and writer. She lives in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, where she teaches English and Media Arts at Brentwood College School. Justine is currently working on a YA novel called Jolandi and J. 

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