Sidewalk Cracks
The day I first saw my mother fall,
I had outgrown tattered black tights,
temper tantrums, and tiny plaid Christmas
dresses lousy with red ribbon.
Wrapped in the cool of my passive dislike,
I watched her toe miss the bottom stair
and arc upward, her body curving
like a question mark,
her lips a horizontal gash.
Five stairs bit her heel, collapsed her knees,
arched her back, rammed her shoulders,
pounded the rear of her skull.
After the tumble of sound,
she lay still, eyelids pulled
over the picture of her pain.
When I met my mother’s eyes again,
she was standing, but I still
sick with the aftertaste of fear.
It seems the girl I was is a stranger to me;
trussed up in red, stepping furiously
on sidewalk cracks.
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