Level

You carry the page of the city out flat on both hands. Ryo does not look up. It lifts the dish, slides the page under it, sets the dish down, and says one word: Level. You hold the table by its edges.

One drop of ink falls in. The rings open on the water and lean, one after another, toward the Xs showing through the glass. Ryo lays a sheet of paper on the water, waits, and lifts it by two corners. The print comes up wet with a ring around every garden in the city.

Ryo does it again, and again. You keep the table level. The prints dry in rows on the grass, held down with stones from the yard.

Lina tacks the first one to the door of the shed. A boy comes in off the alley and stands in front of it. He finds a ring and puts his finger on it. That one's ours, he says. It's on the wrong side of the highway.