New Poetry by Gale Acuff

Graduate School in English

Wally Sandburg sits across from me

at my small round white-topped table in my

converted garage apartment. I write

the last paragraph of a needless paper

on Yeats. He hasn't started his yet. Wise

man, to save his lust for the best 'til last.

He's brought a bottle of Jim Beam, enough

still left for us both. I don't want any

--I do like a drink, so I don't drink it

anymore. When he was in the bathroom

he was singing, as if in orgasm,

O God, I love to pee, I love to pee.

Hold it down, I said. Don't wake the landlord.

He returns and takes his seat. Pours a drink.

Silence for five minutes. He's trying to

think. And then he says, while my head is bowed

to complete my final sentence, like a

scribe at work, Your mother swallows. I cross

my t and look up. He suddenly adds,

I'm sorry. Like he means it--he never

does, but he seems sincere this time.

I smile. I chuckle. I wonder if she

does, I think. Or did--the last time she saw

my father was eighteen years ago. Could

it be that I had a younger--older?--

brother, sister, lost among her lips, her

throat, her stomach? It's sure something to think

about. It might make a poem. I'll try it

on him now. I start to speak--all that comes

is Give me that bottle. I chug it. Straight.

Four gulps. Without gagging. You mean like that,

I say. I guess I showed him. Mother, too.


- Gale Acuff 2013

Gale has had poetry published in Ascent, Ohio Journal, Descant, Adirondack Review, Ottawa Arts Review, Worcester Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Arkansas Review, Carolina Quarterly, Poem, South Dakota Review, Santa Barbara Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, and many other journals. I have authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel (BrickHouse Press, 2004), The Weight of the World (BrickHouse, 2006), and The Story of My Lives (BrickHouse, 2008).

Gale has also taught university English in the US, China, and the Palestinian West Bank.