Before I fall asleep each night I pray

to Miss Hooker, my Sunday School teacher,
that she’ll forgive my sins and shortcomings
and long-comings, too, for that matter, it’s
not that I worship her but at least she’s
closer at hand than God is, after all,
I can actually see her and then
I feel her and in our class today I
touched her though it was an accident but
maybe she or God Himself was behind
it, she was helping me to find the right
pages in my workbook when her breath blew
in my ear though gently and the first two
fingers of her left hand grazed my right and
she said Excuse me and I said I do.



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