Recovery?

    26 steps from here to there.

   With my arm wrapped in a plaster cast I make the sign;  "FOR RENT".   It is awkward trying to hold up the sign and nail it to a post outside by the street.     The wind is blowing,  and the branches above me creak and groan as they sway,  a few drops of trapped water escape the needles and fall on me.    It is getting cold.  Summer is over.

  A second, equally possible life I saw reflected back at me from the long-gone panes of her eyes.  Flat empty space now, as if the glass had been knocked out of the frames, like they were from the house I drag myself up the stairs and back into.


  33 breaths from now until forever.   Measured distance,    You know what you gotta' do, Cowboy.