Greenhouse at Midnight

At midnight the greenhouse hums like a held violin. Fog beads on the glass, small planets learning gravity. Tomato vines lift their wrists toward the sodium lamps. Outside, February sleeps in a rusted wheelbarrow.

I open the door and warm soil exhales rain. Mint flashes its sharp coin of scent against my sleeve. Water in the trough shivers with reflected stars. Somewhere a train folds the dark into long metal wings.

Here, basil leaves are tongues of green fire, and peppers hang like lanterns waiting for a festival. A moth circles my head, pale as unsealed paper, then settles on a stake as if listening for news.

By dawn the panes are pink with borrowed weather. I carry one crate of seedlings into the cold parking lot. Each rootball is a fist unclenching in my hands. The city wakes; I set down spring, row by row.