I turned and ran the whole way home.

That evening when the old bitch paddled me

for missing church, for once I didn’t mind.

III.

God didn’t care. He saw where I belonged.

She told me years ago how everyone

would either go to Heaven or to Hell.

God knew it all, and nothing you could do

would make a difference. I asked her how

a person knew where he was chosen for.

She said, “A person always knows inside.”

She asked me suddenly—for the first time—

if I were saved. I couldn’t give an answer.

“Look in your heart,” she told me. “Look for Jesus.”

All night I lay in bed and thought about it.

I tried to pray, but mostly I just kept

imagining my heart, how dry it was

and empty like a shell that long ago

someone had picked up sparkling from the surf.

But now it lies in a cluttered dresser drawer

where no one ever touches it again.

And if you ever held it to your ear,

you wouldn’t hear the crash of ocean waves.

All you would feel is the harshness of bone.

All you would hear is a hush of loneliness

so small that you could hold it in your hand.

That night I knew that I would go to Hell,

and it would be a place just like my room—

dark, suffocating, with its door shut tight,

and even if my mother were there too,

she wouldn’t find me. I’d always be alone.

VI.

The next night I left home. I walked for miles

through fields and farmland without any aim.

It was so dark I couldn’t see my way.

Then pushing though a cornfield, suddenly

I tripped and slid into some kind of hole.

I clutched the muddy walls to break my fall.

They crumbled at my weight. Each time I tried

to right myself I slipped and fell again.

Stuck ankle-deep in mud, I screamed for help,

struggling in darkness, unable to escape.

Finally I lay there panting at the bottom.

It seemed so deep I didn’t try again,

and, absolutely sure that I would die there,

I fell asleep, still glad that I’d left home.

And I remember waking up that morning

in a deep ditch beside a cornfield. I

was hungry, cold. My clothes were caked with mud.

The first thing that I noticed was a crow

perched right above me on the ditch’s edge,

blinking and cawing at the murky sky.

I lay there shaking, stupidly afraid

the bird would swoop and blind me with his claws.

Trying to keep still, holding my breath,

I watched him pacing back and forth while slowly

the cool green daylight filtered through the corn.

I finally summoned courage to stand up,

and—just like that—the startled bird flapped off.

At first I was embarrassed. How had I

become so terrified of that small creature?