The Woman Downstairs

Chicago is where the woman downstairs
 starved herself to death last summer
 her boyfriend Ted ate hot dogs and wept
 with the gray rats out on the fire escape
 in a thrift store chair I drank cases of beer
 and dreamed of laying down on the el tracks
 the trains roared by under smoke-gray skies
 Lake Michigan rose and fell like a bird
 and when the wind screamed up Ashland Avenue
 the corner bars were full by noon
 and the old stewbums sliding down their stools
 ate boiled eggs and fed beer to the dogs
 the woman downstairs lost all her hair
 and wore a beret in the laundryroom
 I borrowed her soap and bought her a Coke
 but she left it on a dryer
 she died in June weighing 82
 her boyfriend went back to New York
 the cops wandered through her dusty rooms
 one of them stole her TV
 and when the wind screamed up Ashland Avenue
 the corner bars were full by noon
 and the old stewbums sliding down their stools
 ate boiled eggs and fed beer to the dogs