Blue Tape

The drip line does not stop where you found it. It goes under a gate and along the back fences on nails, split in places and mended every few yards with gray tape, each mend wound three turns and pressed flat with a thumb.

At the last fence the tape is blue.

Beyond that is the alley, a strip of broken concrete between a parking garage and a yard, and here the drip line climbs the south face of the garage, floor by floor, beside a steel stair. The whole face has been hung with wire and planted, kale and sweet potato vine, nine floors of it, up to the roof. At the curb a water truck has its hose reel out, and along the wall stands a line of people with jugs. It is Tuesday. Nobody in the line looks up.

Across the alley a compost truck is backing into the yard, its alarm going.