A man with a saint’s name 
called our house

He had the wrong number but,
No matter, he said, and left some scriptures
on our answering machine

Hebrews 13:5 —
“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you”

My teenage daughter was wondering
why I was writing down the verses —
I don’t even go to church

But I wasn’t sure it was a wrong number
or that I am an unbeliever

When my grandmother
read me Genesis
I didn’t understand 
that it was all poetry,
a magnificent design
that takes a lifetime
to unravel

Deuteronomy 7:9 —
“A covenant of love
to last a thousand
generations” 

What if this pact is not
a Father’s promise,
but that which faithfully
tells the planets how to swing
and the birds how to nest?

I want to unforget that this life
is not a bad dream
and we are not ants
wandering over an orb hurtling through space

There are no numbers that are wrong,
no disasters without regeneration,
no triumph where all is won

I must write myself out of this comic book
of thick black lines and primary colors
and walk into the fathomless story 
that is unfolding within and around me, 
the story that is still being written —
no happy endings, no sad ones,
no endings at all