The Bench

The pot sits at the end of the nursery's long bench, behind the library, under a string of bulbs, on the sheet of newspaper it came wrapped in. The day you brought it back you unwrapped it and read the date at the top. It was a week from that day.

You water it every morning. The week comes round. On the day the sheet names, you go into the library and read the day's paper at the desk. The front page is the sheet under your pot, line for line. You have been reading it all week.

Nobody asks for the pot. It puts out a pad, then another, and the sheet under it takes a brown ring the size of its foot. The summer goes by.

The first night the heat lets go of the pavement, Remy is at the gate with the bike, loading the crate for the wall. The left crank has a new bolt. He does not ask for the pot. He looks at the bench.