Greenhouse in the Observatory

At the hill's old observatory, glass keeps two kinds of night, ferns bead their wrists with condensation while cracked brass telescopes sleep like folded cranes, and rain ticks the dome with patient Morse.

Tomatoes climb where constellations were charted, their yellow stars opening at noon; bees drift through dust motes and equations, making a low hymn around the rusted gears.

I turn a valve and the room exhales warm mineral breath, planets of water swell on each leaf edge; outside, the town hums in its electric weather, inside, every stem leans toward an absent galaxy.

By dusk, the panes burn copper then violet, and the first real star arrives above the ridge. We harvest basil into our sleeves and carry home a sky that smells of earth.