Before the Birds

The trike is waiting at the next corner, Lisa's thumb on the bell. The frame was a hospital cart, the rack a stroller's, and under the saddle is a motor to help the pedals. Lisa hands you a bunch of flowers in brown paper and tips her head at an alley.

You carry it through on foot while she goes around the block. Every back gate is shut but one, which is propped open with a brick. A dog under a fig tree watches you and does nothing.

An old man takes the flowers at the open gate. Tied to the stems is a tag with a square printed on it. He holds his phone to the square, and a card opens on the glass under white ferns of ice. He warms a patch with his thumb until the ice draws back from it. The phone chimes twice, softly, and the words are there. It's from my sister, he says to the dog. She says pick the figs before the birds do.

At the end of the alley the sun is overhead, and Lisa is waiting. Up Twelfth is a laundromat with a cedar wall climbing its side.