Stress Test

The sky is the color of a wet sidewalk.

I stepped out to get the mail, and the world

just slid right out from under my heels.

The pop was louder than the fall—

a dry cedar branch snapping under a boot.

It’s the same radius I cracked in the third grade

jumping off the shed because you said you’d catch me.

The doctor said the knit was stronger than the original,

but the damp air always finds the seam.

I sat there in the slush, holding my wrist,

listening to the mail truck move down the block.

The break is a quiet, internal thing now.

I don't even have to look at the x-ray to know

exactly where the structural failure began.