Are you saved, boys and girls? 
			Have you taken Jesus as your savior?  
			It's autumn, 1939, or maybe 40, 
			so I'm five or six years old,
			and I'm seated in a circle 
			with my schoolmates 
			in a one-room schoolhouse 
			deep in the back woods 
			of Bedford County, 
			all of us with our eyes closed, 
			and in the middle of the circle, 
			an itinerant preacher giving us 
			his spiel, and all around me 
			a counterpoint of amens, 
			and yeslords, and praisegods, 
			especially from the older kids, 
			but I'm feeling lost 
			and queasy in the stomach, 
			not knowing what to say, 
			not comprehending, are you saved?  

			Saved from what?  
			And savior isn't a word 
			I've learned from the comic strips
			I read, but I open my eyes 
			enough to squint across the circle, 
			and there behind the preacher 
			I see Henry--a farm boy 
			who's dared me 
			to a pissing match out behind 
			the cedar trees and the only kid, 
			so far, with anything to say to me--
			and he has his finger 
			up his nose, his eyes crossed 
			and his tongue sticking out, 
			and it's all I can do 
			to keep from laughing aloud, 
			and though I never saw Henry 
			again after second grade, 
			I still remember his silent exegesis,  
			how he saved me that autumn day.

		
				--- Julian Crowell
				My thanks to Passager for publishing
				"Saved" in their Issue 46, 2008.