STAIR WELL

I tipped myself into half of an escape to sit alone on the in-laws' stairs - tilted there by my uneven troubles from imbalances set by disconnections

I was taking myself off my thumped legs and away from my sucks of short-fix air - which set me to stand for a brief parade among partly-heard party conversations

of drunk relatives - spiked by marriage vows - loosened by the briefest of infidelities - those with a younger man whose wife stood up to beauty's allure - she was there for measure

I put up too - with the racist uncle's drunk ideas for less than five minutes - not quite a cure - but enough to get me to stand up again and to leave him staring at an empty step