there is a cat that sits on my driveway
it has green eyes and black stripes
and you wouldn't know from looking at it, but that cat is an angel

the cat stares, unmoving, as i pull up the driveway toward it
because it knows that i won't cause it harm,

or if it is further down the driveway when i return home,
it bounds off into the brush, having spotted a demon wrapped in bluebird feathers or groundhog fur

i do not know if the cat is male or female, so i have decided the cat is neither --
*** is an attribute of animals born haphazardly from evolution.
but angels don't grow organic and messy:
angels are each lovingly hand built from the embers of stars that burnt out before earth formed
when you peer upward through your million dollar observatory, into the far depths of distant galaxies, your eye
is kissed by the light that was shed by the cat
before it was given to protect this domain

in a world of seven billion humans, one-in-a-million miracles happen seven thousand times a day

once, on the subway, a woman smiled at me
a stranger
smiled at me like i mattered
and i didn't realize this at the time
but that woman is god
and that smile was given to me as a gift because
she knew the way it would echo in my memory,
spill from my lips like tea sloshing from a full cup as i hurry from day to day

i have been in churches and prayer circles, but that smile is the closest i've ever come to the divine

these stories
these holy, sacred, special, set-apart,  made up
stories
are the only skin i have left
against the cold fact that we are all atoms,
that atoms are indifferent,
that we are indifferent,
that we are drops of water on a bit of star-**** at the edge of one of a hundred billion somewheres.


when i die, wait.
in a few billion years, the Sun will swallow my ashes
she will grow small and dark, fade out in dusty death

we will all be angels.