Our Father, Who Art

If I kill myself I’ll see my father

unless he’s up in Heaven, I doubt it

but suicide’s a pretty sour sin

they tell me at church and Sunday School so

if I’m good for the rest of my life

and especially if I believe that

Jesus is the Son of God then I go

to Heaven but if Father’s not there then

.

I’m screwed, I don’t think that I can beg God

to demote me to Hellfire and what kind

of Afterlife will it be if I can’t

see again and even visit old souls

I used to know, especially kin

-folk, especially my father, who was

.

good but maybe not good enough to dwell

in the House of the Lord forever and

all that? At least that’s what Mother swears to

.

but after Sunday School this morning I

expressed my concern to my teacher and

her answer was tears and a silent weeping,

Good-Book fancy for tears, and shaking and

heaving so that I had to comfort her

.

and then I whispered Goodbye, see you next

time and someone muttered and every

day until then and thereafter. Daddy?