Dagne Forrest
FALLDOWN LANE
Looking up Falldown Lane I didn’t know it would end
in red. Red splotch on my forehead, red running down
my chin, and my head full of sharp thoughts, worried
my husband and son had the situation misread. I bleated
just because I’m talking doesn’t mean everything’s okay,
red welling at my lip uncontrollably, my tongue
running over the wrongness of things inside my mouth,
afraid of what it meant. I’d read the day wrong, trusted
the bright sky overhead, too blithe in where I stepped
as I forgot my constantly dizzy head. My husband, only
slightly behind or ahead, pointed to the bench and tree
whose story we shared, said something that just as quickly
left my head. I lurched sideways, snarled up in the rope
placed on the sloping sidewalk’s bed of gravel by road
workers who’d never pictured a dreamy walker instead
pulled down, down by gravity, my body’s weight following
behind my head, the order of operations all wrong,
smack of chinbone on pavement. Everything went red.