The first album I ever bought
was Johnny Cash: Live at Folsom Prison.
“I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die…”
I was in the sixth grade.
The Man in Black was a badass.
It was about the same time I’d looked
around and noticed no one else in my family
was still going to church.
I’d been going to a friend’s church,
where they dunked people backwards
in a person-sized see-through glass tank,
after most everyone sang a hymn or two.
It didn’t look like anything I’d ever be doing.
I just wasn’t feeling it.
I told David I wasn’t going to his church on
Sunday mornings anymore.
He asked, “What’ll you do instead?”
“Listen to Johnny Cash.”
2021
Russell C. Smith
