Ten Count

I cry when I think about Miss Hooker,
my Sunday School teacher, how old she is,
25 I'd guess, which is getting on
in years and by the time I'm old enough
to marry her she might be dead and miss
being my happily wedded wife. But
say I'm 25, which I will be in
another fifteen years—that will make her
(let me think) 40 at least, and too old

for anything—I'll want to have babies
but I'm not sure she can in her old age.
That's why I pray like crazy every night
that she'll grow younger while I grow older
and we'll meet in the middle, say 18,
which is grown up. I have to have faith that
God will make my wish come true but if He
craps out on me I'll be forced to believe

 it's His will that Miss Hooker's not the one,
maybe not good enough or maybe
I'm not good enough for her. Whatever
God's reason I'll have to take it because
He knows what's best for me, Miss Hooker says
so, and she should know, she spent two years at
junior college and when she tells Bible
stories you get the feeling she was there

when they happened, just like an eyewitness
and she could testify so how could I
miss with her in my corner forever
or at least until I die? I don't want
to die but I'm not stupid, I'll have to
when my time is up and so will she and
even if we married she'd probably
kick first and leave me all alone, at least
until I die, too, and join her again,
in Heaven, I hope, if I've been a good
husband. Otherwise, I'll have to go to

Hell. But I might be the one to die first
and leave her alone, maybe with kids, and
then I'll have to kill a few years up there
until she dies and comes to me and I
just hope she doesn't remarry on me,
two husbands in Heaven being one too
many. I might have to fight the guy and
for Christmas last year Santa Claus brought me
boxing gloves and I know how to use them,
I watch TV. Who will she pull for then? 

I'll know which of us she really loves when
we fight and I hope it's me and I win
anyway and if I lose I hope that
she loves me more, but if I'm wrong on all
counts and she'd rather be with him then I
hope God will send me to Hell, where I'll be
happier. But didn't Miss Hooker say
that Jesus said that there's no marriage in
Heaven? Then I guess that means they're living
in sin and I don't want any part of
that, bad things in the Good Place. Now I wish 

I'd never seen Miss Hooker at all. No
wonder I cry, and me almost a man,
or now in double figures anyway.
But you can't go back to the past, even
when you're dead, unless death's where you started
and where you wind up, to begin
all over when everything's all over.
Maybe that isn't in the Bible but
it damn well should be, even God isn't
right all the time. Not nobody's perfect.