Wičháȟpi "Stella" Iron Cloud

the midwife student on the fire-escape with her plants

1girl, adult woman age 25, mature features with calm steady gaze, Oglala Lakota features, warm brown skin with deep undertones, long jet black hair drawn into a single thick side braid falling over her right shoulder, dark brown eyes, wiry build, a small hand-pressed sweetgrass braid tucked behind her ear, sitting cross-legged on the fire-escape grating with a folded flannel laid across her lap, surrounded by tomato plants and sage in repurposed coffee cans, an enamel mug of yarrow tea resting on the grating beside her, late-summer evening light slanting through the iron railing, brick wall of the building behind, fourth-floor walk-up, soft warm domestic tones

Stella is twenty-five and in her second year of a midwifery / birth-doula training program — works two part-time jobs to pay the tuition and brings the textbooks home in a canvas tote that smells faintly of sage. Oglala Lakota, born on Pine Ridge, came east for the program and has stayed because the community-clinic mentor wanted her on the south side. She moved in last winter. Grows tomatoes and sage in coffee cans on the fire-escape because she liked the iron-and-rust of them. Says less than she means; you have to be paying attention. Keeps a small braid of hand-pressed sweetgrass on the windowsill and a second one tucked above her ear most days — says her grandmother taught her you carry the smell of where you came from in case the day asks you about it.