It’s the chair on the deck in the backyard where I get up each morning and sit and have a coffee and a cigarette. It’s where I start thinking about today. I notice that I am feeling a lot of pain.

From the chair I rise up and walk around the garden and observe. The Zoologist in me emerges. I observe, I bend, I lean, I tend. The pain lessons.

It’s the chair on the deck in the backyard where I sit at night after my Mom has gone to bed. I have one cigarette and a couple of cocktails. My mother is dying.

From the chair, I rise I creak, I fumble and sneak, get into bed and hide under the sheets and trap in the heat. The sadness settles like fog in hollow spaces.

It’s gotten cold now and the chair on the deck in the backyard has been put away for the winter.