THE WOMAN HANGING FROM
THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR WINDOW

      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 Levi’s 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 crying for

      the lost beauty of her own life. She sees the

      sun falling west over the gray 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.