Out the Front Door
She was hurt but she bounced up and looked around
the playground, the kitchen where everyone was weeping, her first grade classroom
from the podium at her synagogue and in the entryway of her house.
She knew people saw her fall but did they notice how quickly she stood up?
Did they see her smiling as she brushed off the leaves and dirt?
Or maybe they noticed the hole in her jeans and a hand that was tired from typing.
Or when you looked close you might see her breathe so deep and far
as if she could breathe her way
back on the seesaw before recess was over
or off the podium and through the entryway of her house
out the front door
where she stood on the porch for a minute waiting to get into a car with a boy she vaguely remembered from middle school with the afro and they blasted music they would hear one day as they watched their beautiful kids in the rearview mirror and he wiped off all the places that would hurt and she would rest her head on him and hear what she thought was his breath but really it is his whisper from a place far away.