Contingency Plan

From my 10:03 window
on Christmas Eve morning
a bouncing squirrel stops
to drink from the edge
of a frozen puddle
formed on the rubber
of the roof next-door
by the faulty pitch
of a day-laborer
who cared not
if the rain
made it to the gutter.

By the time I return
from typing this
it's gone in search
of the next small break
waiting in a frozen world.
I crack my last three eggs
over a warming pan
grateful that none of my parents
kept a room for me
when I fell from the nest.

It took two weeks
to remember the name
of the last girl I dated
after she split.
They may all be flight risks.
I'll go unchanged.
Unshadowed convictions
won't douse my flame.
There's a reckoning with irony
that I'll live to see.