Girl on a sidewalk

Out of the corner of my eye
I saw a shape on the sidewalk
Because it was not something that belonged there
I stopped
As did another.

The shape was a young lady,
Laid out by a bicycle fall
Her backpack flung off to the side
The bike lounging lazily on its side near her

She was wearing red pants
Blood red, but not hers-blood that is
And they were short, too short for the cooler weather
She didn't appear to be shaken or scared

The other lady who stopped and I hoovered around her
Without touching--I work in a school, I know what I can and cannot do
As she picked herself up and accepted our
Mother-like admonishments: are you alright? are you hurt? can you walk?

She was almost serene in her re-assembly of stuff
The only give away, the bright red flush to her cheeks
And I wondered, since I didn't see it, did she really fall?
Or was this some experiment to see if someone would notice?
The other woman offered to drive her home, but she politely refused
Even though, she told us, she lived quite a ways away.

She got back on the bike and began to pedal stoically on
Without a backward glance to the would-be rescurers
Her pony tail bouncing at each crack in the sidewalk.
We looked at each other, the woman and I and I could see her question, too.
Did she fall? Was she running away and stopped to rest? Was she trying
to see if anyone cared that a young lady off her bike in red pants would lay on
the cold sidewalk on a winter afternoon?
I wondered as I drove on and I still do, sketching scenarios of the whys and
wherefores.