Weather Station at the Roofline

On the hospital roof, tomatoes listen to helicopters combing the noon heat. Their leaves hold a green, metallic hush, as if rain were a language just out of reach.

I carry buckets up six flights of breath, water sloshing like a small inland sea. The city below clicks and flashes its scales, a carp of glass turning in light.

At dusk the vents begin their low harmonies, pigeons settle in satellite dishes, and every stem lifts one thin throat to the moon's white cup.

By morning, fruit glows under dust, warm as lanterns behind paper walls. We slice them open; summer spills out, seed by bright seed, forgiving the sky.