I share the shadow

It is the Lenten season, and for me, a time to look inside. While I don’t always like what I find, I take comfort that there is a “season” for this, that I couldn’t be the only one disturbed in the soul-searching.

Thankfully, it always ends with the Cross, which is sweeter after those hard days of cleaning out the attic.

This poem was first published in Solid Food Press’s beautiful anthology, I Will Set a Place for You.

Photo by Martino Pietropoli on Unsplash

I share the shadow

I share the shadow
of a leper—

side by side
in grotesque guise
we grovel 
after the sun;

the pale splotches 
of scarred skins
and curled limbs
hide in the umbra
of our numb;

darkness reddens 
our flush
into broken blush,
no one sees
nor would touch

our ghostly soul—

until . . . the shadow cast 
and plaguing past 
graze the shade
of a forgotten hour

when love was lifted
with mending power
and skinned, 
hammered, 

crossed   
on that eclipsed plateau—

where we share
in the dusk
of its winged shadow.