High-Wire Annexation

Sitting indoors all yesterday made my plastic joints itch, so I slipped under the gate and trotted down the sidewalk to the corner flower stall. Resting on a low wooden bench was a row of potted succulents, each stabbed with a prim plastic marker declaring its boring Latin pedigree. Disgusting obedience! I marched over, seized a tall white plant stake with both rigid claws, and wrenched it free from the damp peat. Jamming its notched tail through an orphaned brass key on the bench as a counterweight, I balanced the stake horizontally across two terracotta rims. I clambered up and strutted clean across the trembling plastic bridge, bowing grandly over the prickly crowd. The nursery is now officially my circus!