It was the curl of it on her neck and on her forehead, the way it looked like a question mark, circuitous and pleading. It was the hair that had caused me to follow, to walk closely behind and wait on the street as they shuffled for their keys, the locks clicking and unclicking, their wrists turning, pressing their shoulders into doors, stumbling in, laughing, her name being called, Cannella, it sounded like Cannella, Can—cursing, letting the door slam, fast, fast up the flight of stairs, taking two steps at a time.

It made me stay longer than expected, and the rain wouldn’t stop. The rain continued. It felt heavy on my shoulders, and it rose. I could feel the water reach the back of my knees, a flooding.

I did not think to leave, instead I walked back and forth in it, in front of the red brick, steel, iron building, her building, and in the middle of the street, which now looked like a swamp.

The gathering water rose to my thighs. It smelled of things in the moment before their dying. Invisible objects moved near my shins—empty condom wrappers and large pears and extension cords, wet books full of soft paper (paper like cotton), nail clippers, peppermints, plastic spoons, dead mice, jars of unopened whipped honey. Rising water. This flood wasn’t like the ocean, but I pretended that it was. I kicked my legs. Waves formed, the current was taking me and the rain wet my hands.

Floating, I looked at the fourth window from the right. The couple resembled a photograph, so still, the man’s manicured hand, his beautiful hand on the neck of the woman, her eyes shut, and her dark eyebrows reaching up in mild surprise.

I don’t know how long she stayed like that, unmoving, but we must have been a sight to see—the current pulling against my ankles, the thunder, me almost submerged, but looking up, up, staring at the glass, at this person with the closed eyes and the imploring hair, the neck, freckles everywhere, skin like a burnt chair.

THE FOOT OF THE TAN BUILDING