How Riding Heely Shoes at the Park Can Break Your Heart

Two times in her life

Elle has been in a hospital.

Once to say hello to Lilyan,

a first edition baby girl niece,

ink still drying on page one, though

already, clearly, a love story—

then again yesterday to mourn

the passage of a wounded friend

who once rashly promised her

a piece of eternity.

Sitting on the blue bed,

her wrist still cradled by a

baggie of ice from home,

there was yet time to hope,

until the blue doctor arrived

with photographic evidence and

a bagful of big words,

three of which Elle understood.

“Yes, it’s broken.”

And she knew:
Invincibility was gone forever.