East Twelfth

The wall is four stories of cedar slats on the side of a laundromat, half planted, with a ladder leaning on it and two kids at the top eating paletas. At noon the bike gets there, and the man who rode it gets off and lets it lean against a parking meter.

Pots come down out of the crate onto the sidewalk. They are Strawbactus, flat green pads in wet newspaper, grown at a nursery behind a library. The woman who runs the laundromat comes out wiping her hands. She counts the pots, and counts them again. Remy, she says, it was supposed to be twenty-five.

You counted twenty-four. He looks in the crate anyway, and there in the corner is a twenty-fifth pot, a little bigger than the rest, its pads furred bright green. The newspaper around it is dry.

Remy doesn't say anything. He holds it out to you, since you are nearest. At the top of the ladder the kids have stopped eating. One of them starts down.