I.

A man carries his wife into their house. She is wearing all white and smiling so much that it hurts. A man sets his wife down and kisses her long and hard. A man's wife (who is wearing all white) goes into the bathroom (to powder her nose, she says) and he sits down hard onto a new red chair that he bought a week ago at a furniture store down the road. A man stares out of his living room window, happier than he has ever been, happy. . . god he is happy, and the chair sits and holds him; it is a chair.

II.

A man carries a red chair upstairs into his new home (a yellow house with white shutters). His pregnant wife stands outside, directing the movers and sipping sweet tea with a slice of orange. A man looks through the home, thinking briefly about debts and monies and bills and a job he's never been to and a life he doesn't quite fit in yet. A man decides to put some empty boxes into a crawlspace above his bedroom, and stands up on top of a red chair, making himself tall. As corrugated cardboard slips into hidden rooms and darkened nooks, the chair sits and holds him; it is a chair.

III.

A little boy runs into his room singing a song in a language that doesn't exist. In his right hand: blue, green, and purple. In his left: red and yellow and orange. A little boy grabs a piece of notebook paper from the corner of his room and throws it onto the seat of a red chair and starts to draw dinosaurs, pushing his thick plastic glasses up onto his face every few moments, still singing. Occasionally, the crayons slip and mark lightly onto the red chair, but the red chair doesn't mind. Eventually, a little boy finishes his artwork. Eventually, a little boy runs downstairs to the kitchen where his mother (tries to ) hide the tape. Tiny feet in slippers shaped like bunny rabbits run upstairs and tiny hands push a red chair across a room, bumping it hard into the wall, leaving a little red mark on the paint. A little boy climbs slowly onto the red chair, mounting it like a Sherpa on Everest, serious and somber as he tapes a crayon dinosaur with light blue stripes to the wall, and the chair sits and holds him; it is a chair.

IV.

A boy sits in a red chair, staring at himself in the mirror, wondering why he lost. Blood drips out of his nose. Red-brown seeping into a cotton shirt. Red-brown freckling rugs and carpets. Red-brown pooling on a red chair. The chair does not mind the blood; it is a chair.

V.

A young man sits in a red chair, wondering why his father yells so much, wondering why his father can't understand that he is in love, and that he needs to get a decent job so he can get married. A young man sits in a red chair, rocking (even though the red chair is not a rocking chair) and wonders if he should tell his father that he is going to marry the girl, because she is pregnant, that she got pregnant in the back of a black Ford, that she is going to bear his child. A young man wishes his father understood why he had to join the army, to make the money, to support his wife. A young man stares off into the night through his bedroom window from behind his desk, from atop a red chair. The chair sits and holds him; it is a chair.

VI.

A man sits in a red chair, wondering what why he can't stop thinking about the man with the yellow skin and the eyes that weren't shaped like his and about out how he had to kill him because the man, the man with the yellow skin and the eyes that weren't shaped like his, he would have killed him, wouldn't he? Of course he would have, god, I could be dead, I could be dead but the man isn't dead, he is sitting in a red chair, and he isn't in the place with the guns or the people who speak hard words in a hard language, he is in America and he is sitting in the old red chair and his wife and his baby are in the other room and she is crying because he has been yelling and he loves her and he walks in and holds her and cries and she asks him in-between her yelling and her sobs

whythehelldidyouhavetogocouldn'tyouhaveworkedinagarageorgoneto
schoolorsomethinggodIloveyoubutyouwon'ttalktomeandIdon'tknowyou
anymoreandIjustwantthingstobelike they-were-before-you-

The woman doesn't ever say the word ‘left' because she is crying and the man holds her and starts to realize he is still alive and he has a wife and he loves her and he has a daughter and he loves her. He holds her. Like a red chair. He sits and holds her; he is a man.

VII.

A man tells a younger man not to keep his daughter out too late. The young man lies and says he won't and walks out the door, holding the young woman's hand and the man's wife sighs and goes to watch TV. A man goes and sits in his study, sitting hard onto a red chair, picking up the paper and ignoring the words (he can't see them, you see, because he is crying, because the little girl isn't little anymore. Because the little girl isn't a girl anymore.), and the chair sits and holds him; it is a chair.

VIII.

An old man sits in his living room. The room is full of flowers he does not need. The kitchen is full of food he will not eat. An old man stares through the door and down the hall into his old bedroom and knows he does not want to go in there again. An old man stares for a very long time. Sometimes he cries. Sometimes he laughs to himself (unconvincingly). He does not want to go in there again.

The chair sits and holds him; it is a chair.

Day turns to dusk. Dusk turns to night. Night turns to dawn. Dawn turns to day. An old man sits in a red chair.

IX.

The grandchildren drive away in a silver minivan, and an old man waves, then sits down. An old man with the twisted brown cane sits in an ancient, scarred red chair. A chair sits on an ancient, scarred, crooked porch. An old man stares off into the night from the porch, glad to be alive, and the chair sits and holds him; it is a chair.

X.

A red chair sits on a porch alone. A man and a woman and two little boys walk up onto the porch. They are all wearing black. One of the little boys, the older one, climbs onto the chair. He is crying, because he understands. A man and a woman go inside, and the man holds the woman tight. One of the little boys, the younger one, climbs onto his brother. He is crying, because he does not understand. The chair sits and holds them; it is a chair.

That is what chairs do.