On the last Saturday of August,

an ambulance sirened past Valley Forge.

Your red Toyota was our caboose.

The cyclists who found me, squashed,

waved and went on.

Above me, a clean-shaven man in white smiled. 

He told me I was brave. 

Your electric toothbrush 

vanished from Mom’s medicine cabinet.

My kitsch cast was claustrophobic with sharpie.

The maple trees out my window turned red.

How did the Continental soldiers survive

six months of wind whipped backs?

Were chalk blue fingers

suffering as usual?

Maybe if there was no Days Inn

no road trip  no grasshopper girl

no garden wall  no loose brick     

no tumble   no pavement  

no falling   no crumple

no left arm, cracked in two

maybe you would have stayed.