The Ghost of Faith
by Evan Harrison
Wet hoofprints faintly dotting the wood—
tapping half-dreamt, half-remembered,
fully known: the lamb has been walking.
At dawn it rests, curled, coiled wool blood-matted,
ragged from fleeing the shadow of thorns.
You know this lamb does not exist.
Without the choice of healing, it gives up
to slumber, eternal convalescence,
always still within the pasture of light
that, at a point of morning, grows
on the kitchen’s floor.
I’ve forgotten in a mountain orchard,
by a river, with the people I love,
the wool turned pink around each wound.
Night’s darkness becomes a drowning blue.
The lamb has been walking
but will not leave.
