STEPS by Shari MacFarlane
She walked two hours
It still has her mind, her bones, the race through
of pulse and sustenance
She will walk, another two, rehearsing
acts, whole scenes that play into her one set of hands
rearranging everything
She will walk another two, and begin to see behind her
nothing change
It’s the progression that she’s fighting
not each of the small insistent facts
but how they bleed,
run necessarily together
If/then is a scientists’ game
the discovered, proven, ordered is
not hers, the more ordinary, it should have been
She walks along the road
grateful for more road to keep walking
the long string of events now measured in steps
she numbers, 12, 20, 1000, 12,000,
It’s an order she never wanted, but needs
She walks over the road
wearing time under her shoes,
the accumulation of all she can’t leave or lose