Fall

 The ladder wasn’t properly secured

So it was no surprise when he fell,

Not too far a distance

Or end over end,

Nothing like that, thank God.

Instead it was like he sat down too early,

The ground he’d expected to find

Not yet ready for him.

 

I ran to him, my neighbor

Of so many years,

Words of caution and remonstrance

Coming too late,

Sounding silly now,

But their urgency necessary for some other reason,

Perhaps to warn against similar failings

In other households nearby.

 

He was sitting up

By the time I reached him,

Out of breath and sweating,

His eyes shiny

With the distance he’d come through,

As if he’d been away a long time

And didn’t yet realize he was home,

Smiling at the surprise

Of what he hadn’t expected to see.

 

It was a smile unlike any I’d seen

On his face before.

I couldn’t imitate it

But I tried

As if to say, I’ve seen what you’ve seen,

Been where you’ve been,

Know everything you know

Because we’re neighbors and friends.

 

Because we’re friends

I helped him stand up

Grasping his hand and elbow

Perhaps a little too gently for the task,

Because helping after the fact

Is not the same thing

As falling off the ladder with someone

Or living in their house,

Paying their bills,

Enduring their thoughts.

 

How like someone

Who arrived too late,

Calling out foolishly

To the already empty air,

To forget even for just a moment

That separation is already an accomplished fact,

A condition of the hard ground beneath the slippery foot,

The wandering eye,

The inconstant thought.

 

It doesn’t begin with a fall.

The fall completes it.

 

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