When you broke your arm
(in fourth grade)
You told me
(your deep blue eyes flickering, dancing around the room and across my face)
you had been trying to jump the chain link
fence (we, both of us, were breathless, reliving the adventure)
the dog giving chase, you leaping to the top
(the very top, a hundred feet, at least, from the ground)
and then the long fall down
(thinking it was to be your swan song, you fell, you swore to me, with unspeakable grace)
But it was not the end, after all. You walked back around home, grasping your arm with a fearsome grimace
(you would reenact that for me, the next day during recess)
And got all bandaged up properly.

Do you remember
(probably not, it was nothing, after all)
when I asked you about it the other day
(it's been years, and we, both of us, have grown)
And you'd tell me, with a laugh
(and a quick flicker of those astral eyes, an uncanny mirror of lost days)
That you had broken your arm
(not by pursuit of ravenous beast, nor through a fall to rival Rome's)
But when you tripped on the stairs
(you'd been all dressed up in your father's shoes.)
I smiled
(sort of, but not quite, like the first time you told me this story)
and joked that "Nowadays I'm sure they'd fit you far less clumsily."