Hell in a Hand-basket

To hell in a hand-basket we’d go,

or so he said and told us often enough,

all of us boys, cramped together,

moving downward into the pits

of darkness we’d been warned of

many a time that 6^th grade year of our lives,

down into a hell of darkness and fire.

Yet we feared him more than the darkness itself,

we young boys in trouble and trembling,

our hands outstretched, anticipating the ruler’s rule

to strike our flattened palms, young flesh stinging

and red, as we fought the tears that would fall,

a failure of our dry-eyed attempt to be men

and endure his ire, endure his wrath at young boys

breaking the rules, going to hell in a hand-basket.