She is the woman hanging from the 13th floor

window. Her hands are pressed white against the

concrete moulding of the tenement building. She

hangs from the 13th floor window in east Chicago,

with a swirl of birds over her head. They could

be a halo, or a storm of glass waiting to crush her.

She thinks she will be set free.

The woman hanging from the 13th floor window

on the east side of Chicago is not alone.

She is a woman of children, of the baby, Carlos,

and of Margaret, and of Jimmy who is the oldest.

She is her mother’s daughter and her father’s son.

She is several pieces between the two husbands

she has had. She is all the women of the apartment

building who stand watching her, watching themselves.

When she was young she ate wild rice on scraped down

plates in warm wood rooms. It was in the farther

north and she was the baby then. They rocked her.

She sees Lake Michigan lapping at the shores of

herself. It is a dizzy hole of water and the rich

live in tall glass houses at the edge of it. In some

places Lake Michigan speaks softly, here, it just sputters

and butts itself against the asphalt. She sees

other buildings just like hers. She sees other

women hanging from many-floored windows

counting their lives in the palms of their hands

and in the palms of their children’s hands.

She is the woman hanging from the 13th floor window

on the Indian side of town. Her belly is soft from

her children’s births, her worn levis swing down below

her waist, and then her feet, and then her heart.

She is dangling.

The woman hanging from the 13th floor hears voices.

They come to her in the night when the lights have gone

dim. Sometimes they are little cats mewing and scratching

at the door, sometimes they are her grandmother’s voice,

and sometimes they are gigantic men of light whispering

to her to get up, to get up, to get up. That’s when she wants

to have another child to hold onto in the night, to be able

to fall back into dreams.

And the woman hanging from the 13th floor window

hears other voices. Some of them scream out from below

for her to jump, they would push her over. Others cry softly

from the sidewalks, pull their children up like flowers and gather

them into their arms. They would help her, like themselves.

But she is the woman hanging from the 13th floor window,

and she knows she is hanging by her own fingers, her

own skin, her own thread of indecision.

She thinks of Carlos, of Margaret, of Jimmy.

She thinks of her father, and of her mother.

She thinks of all the women she has been, of all

the men. She thinks of the color of her skin, and

of Chicago streets, and of waterfalls and pines.

She thinks of moonlight nights, and of cool spring storms.

Her mind chatters like neon and northside bars.

She thinks of the 4 a.m. lonelinesses that have folded

her up like death, discordant, without logical and

beautiful conclusion. Her teeth break off at the edges.

She would speak.

The woman hangs from the 13th floor window crying for

the lost beauty of her own life. She sees the

sun falling west over the grey plane of Chicago.

She thinks she remembers listening to her own life

break loose, as she falls from the 13th floor

window on the east side of Chicago, or as she

climbs back up to claim herself again.