Things We Don't Do

 by Brett Rutherford

Go to church?
We don't do that.
No money to give;
nice clothes, never.
Father an atheist,
Mother afraid
of the taunts
of the church ladies
about her family,
the things they did
in that shack in the woods
when men came calling.

One summer they let

a church put on

some Bible classes

at the schoolhouse.

I was sent. Bright books

of Bible stories laid forth

Old Testament and New.

I asked too many

questions, mostly about

dinosaurs and other planets.

They sent me home,

asked that I not

come back again, ever.

Things we don't do

include bicycles,

new shoes, clothes

from a big store,

and Boy Scouts

because all that

took money.

I found a copy

of the Boy Scout manual.

Cover to cover I studied it,

envied the boys

those tent nights

and knot-tying skills.

Nowhere was where

we went all summer.

Once a museum

glimpsed from the car;

once or twice

a beautiful house

blurred in passing.

Ten aunts and uncles

never visited,

cousins unmet.

I did possess

a chemistry set,

with not much left

of its supplies.

In the dark cellar

I did my best

to create monsters.

At school,

it was assumed,

as I soared in reading,

that I must come

from the finest family,

that wealth surrounded

a seven-year-old

already reading

Faust and Hamlet.

It was my game

to let them think it so.