Tonight, We Make Our Move I watch her from my window. She has her coat on. I don't know how she's going to do it, but I know it will be something spectacular. She stops at the corner, holding a paper cup and the box of Marlboros I gave her. I feel bad that she is going to be so cold. I've seen the weather forecast. It's going to get as cold as forty degrees tonight. It's already ten degrees right now, and it's supposed to get colder. At least it won't snow. I look down at the street. She waves at the guy on the corner who is trying to light a cigarette. He doesn't have a lighter or a cigarette. The guy is in a baseball cap, but it's almost like he doesn't wear it, so it stays over his eyes, leaving half his face in the dark. He turns away from her. She leans down and lights a match and he sucks in his breath, but then he takes the cigarette. She walks away from the guy and into the apartment building. When she gets upstairs, she leans against the banister. She stands there smoking, blowing out a long stream of smoke. She turns and leans against the wall of the stairwell. She's trying to catch her breath. I hear her coughing. She coughs until she spits. She stands there coughing and spitting. I watch her stand in front of my building and wait. I see a guy walking up the street, and he sees her and starts walking faster. I hear him panting, and when I think about the guy who tried to light his cigarette, I think the guy must be coming here. I look over at my window and he's getting closer to me, and I look back down and see her lean against the wall of the stairwell, but the guy who is walking is just walking by, so I don't see anything anymore. I don't know what she's doing. When I hear him finally walking away, I run to the window again, and she is standing there in front of the building. I hear someone talking on the radio at the coffee shop across the street, so I guess this guy is gone, too. The street is empty. She leans against the building again. She spits and wipes her mouth. Then she takes her coat off and starts throwing snowballs at the roof. I hear them splashing on the shingles. She's throwing them as hard as she can, and all of a sudden the roof starts moving. It's like one of those giant bumper cars at an amusement park. All of a sudden you hear that little _thunk_ sound. It's like a punch line, and everybody is laughing. The roof is moving, and she's got it rocking. Then, in the middle of the movement, she falls on top of it. There's an awful thud. It's like she was trying to climb up and she got caught. I hear her crying, and she's crying for help, but she's only got half the coat on, so all of a sudden the snow starts coming down. The roof is now almost over her head, and it's still moving, like it's moving on its own. It's almost like it's trying to help her. It comes to rest, and there is only one more thing. She takes the hood of her coat off and tosses it at the roof. She has to stand there for a few minutes, holding it up while she catches her breath and then tries to reach up and pull it down. I watch her take a few steps, and then she stops and turns around to the radio. She leans against the building and then leans against the wall of the stairwell. Then she makes it down to the bottom. She walks slowly and carefully toward the subway, and I watch her as she turns the corner and walks toward me. She stops, but it's dark, so I don't know if I'm seeing right. I guess I could be. The sun's gone down. She stops for a second and looks toward me, but then she starts walking again. She keeps moving and walks past my window. She's going toward the bus. I stay up in my room all day, but when I see her walking away, I walk downstairs and get into the car. I leave my window open, and when she gets into her building, I see her head peek out of her coat, and then the next minute I see her arm holding the coat up. Then the lights go out. It's going to be a long night. I drive around the block, just to see if she's okay, but when she comes out in front of her building again, she has her coat on. She walks up the street. She takes a few steps and looks around, and then she turns the corner. I keep watching her. She walks another few blocks, then turns into another building. I wait for a minute, and then I start driving again. Tonight, I start getting a little nervous. If this were the movies, you'd see the camera cut to a close-up of the guy's face, and you'd hear him say, "I'm through." He's not really done, but he knows it's over. I know it's over for me tonight, but I'm not going to quit. I just have to figure out what she wants. I think about telling him a poem, but then I figure it's better if I just keep trying. I'm doing the best I can to figure out what to do. I think that if I just keep going around her building every half hour or so, maybe, I don't know, she'll be standing in the same spot, and when she comes out, I'll be waiting. The trouble is, every time I pass by, she's in her coat. Finally I stop at the coffee shop across the street from my building. I don't have to get out of the car. I just put my head out the window. It's starting to snow again, and I wonder if it will stick. The people at the coffee shop are getting ready to close up. They all look a little nervous. When I walk in, I don't say anything to anyone. The coffee guy tells me to sit down at the counter. I get a cup of coffee and sit down and wait. It's been a long time since I've seen the ceiling of this place. It looks kind of empty. They're only six people sitting at the bar. There's a lady standing at the counter with a bowl of nuts. She's talking to a couple guys at the end of the counter. I'm wondering what they do, but I can't see them too good. All I can see is their faces. They look like they don't talk a lot. That's about the only thing they have in common. They look like they don't do a lot of things, I mean, they don't drink a lot of coffee. I drink my coffee. It's cold and has ice in it, but I'm used to it. I think about the times I've had cold coffee. The guy behind the counter rings me up and puts the bill on the counter, and I reach down to grab it. He picks it up, and I keep looking at him until he hands it to me. It's a ten-dollar bill. He gives me my change. He hands me a little piece of paper that has my change on it, and the guy at the end of the counter comes over and gives me another paper with my change on it. I put them both in my pocket. I look back down and see the guy pick up his change and walk over to the girl with the bowl of nuts and give her a couple coins. The woman who was standing behind the counter is sitting at the end of the bar with her drink in front of her. She has the light on over the top of it, but she's looking straight ahead. I figure she must be very drunk. I figure she must have been drinking since she was sitting down. I wonder what her name is. I can't see from here, but I bet she has a name tag on, so I can just ask her. They'll have to tell me if they have her on the board. I pull my coat up to my neck, and I get up and leave. I go out the front door and start driving again. I just drive around, through the traffic and lights and then through the other side of town. I pull over and start writing a poem. I think it might be the last one she wants to hear. I mean, she might be waiting for me. In that night, in her room, you held my throat; I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. And I felt as if I were in the grip of a snake, a serpent eating me up, a serpent swallowing me down, and in that night, I died. I have to admit that I dozed off for a minute. I think she may have died then. If she died, I hope she knew she was dying. If she died, maybe she understood. I look over at the water again. I have to let her get some sleep. If you're not sleeping, it can be hard to fall asleep. It's like one of those things with the little kids and the teddy bears. If they don't let