A little Lenten story
who gives life to the dead
and calls into existence the things that do not exist
(Romans 4:17c)
Taken out of context it reads like a ghost,
like the time I conjured up a cat
in the attic that leapt like a flame
and vanished along with its own shadow
when I was a child.
These days, the shadows are memories heaped
in piles of dust and ashes and old photograph
albums, and stories I could swear
I never heard, and yet somehow
I remember.
over the water 