After the Telescope

At the decommissioned observatory, apricot saplings lean through the split dome like questions. Morning pools in the brass eyepiece, a small sun caught in a cup of dust.

Swallows stitch black thread across the aperture, their wings clicking like old film. Below, the control room smells of rain and iron, screens gone dark as river stones.

I press my ear to the ladder's spine and hear roots learning the language of bolts. Somewhere under concrete, water keeps time, slow as a cello tuned in another room.

By evening, fruit hangs where constellations once sat. Hands reach up, not for distance but sweetness. The sky stays immense, but nearer now, a field we enter carrying empty baskets.