Selvage, 1911

They say the girls that day like every day were locked in on the eighth floor of the factory, and that despite their different languages their affection for one another had grown—sharing a sandwich, plucking lint from a braid, offering sprigs of lilac.

They say a cigar butt was smoldering in the scraps under the cutting table, and that when the smoke began to rise it was too late, and that knowing they must jump, the girls kissed each other’s cheeks, ran for the windows in pairs, and leapt.

No nets below to catch them, just the crowd, gawking upward, mute at the sight of them. They say they resembled bolts of cloth tumbling from the sky, skirts, aprons, sleeves, some blue, some white, girls unfurling, tumbling, clutching hands.