The parking lot had a floor of sky, and all the cars were parked nose down. I walked among the windshields without falling. Under every wiper lay a poem printed on the thin skin of an onion. The attendant tore off the sheets and slipped them into the sleeping owners’ pockets. “That way, tomorrow morning we’ll know what they love.”

A woman held a basket open. Inside, the lines moved like fish. She took one by the tail and showed it to me: the attendant’s stamp was on its back. I tried to read it, but the onion made me cry, and the woman said those tears weren’t mine yet.

At the exit stood a sign that had expired on September twenty-third. Beyond it, a warm road ran all the way to a red sun. The sign had milk teeth. Every time I asked whether I could pass, it lost a tooth, and the tooth became a key. None fitted the lock. But the door was open; the smell of bread came through the gap.

In the booth, a repairman was testing scissors. He cut the air into perfect squares and lined them up. “No more water coming out,” he said. Behind him, a hand without an arm was rewriting the ceiling, and with every word a bucket fell. I pointed out the hand. He offered me the scissors’ certificate. It was dry.

A girl had sat down on the hood of my car. On her wrist she wore a green snake coiled around a watch. The hand trembled between five and six. The attendant wanted to know why she hadn’t left already. She opened her mouth and a little ladder came out. Its rungs were made of things she hadn’t said.

The repairman began to measure it. I held his scissors still, not knowing whether I was helping or putting another obstacle in the way. The girl climbed down from the hood, turned the ladder sideways, and used it as a bridge between two cars. She chose the one with no sheet on its windshield. The snake crossed first, then came back for her wrist.

At last the attendant asked for my ticket. I searched my pockets: an onion, two teeth, and a wet minute. I gave him the minute. He smoothed it out on the counter, and it became a poem I didn’t know how to write.

The girl started the engine. The wheels began turning above us. The sky found purchase on the asphalt. I stayed in the parking lot with the door open, waiting for the bread to finish baking.