I HAD MUCH BETTER COME WITH YOU
Why don't I just go home? I can scoot in, shut the door, and be safe. I can dash through the gate, my friends talking and asking. I can explain in a rush: “I wasn't watching what I was doing, I was cutting away. No harm was done but I scared the life out of myself.” I could rush along, pell-mell and lickety-split. I could keep running, around houses, in and out of clumps of trees, behind fences. I could get back to my cutting, snipping away at my sunbonnet strings, untied and dangling down in front of me. I could get back to painting my cart, wishing this had never happened in the first place. We could waste a lot of time running around, chasing and making mistakes. We could be drinking spring water politely in the kitchen. I did make his heart beat very fast. I might have been the end of him. It might have been a big, fine thing.