Seed Vault Above the Laundromat

Above the dryers, a locked room of winter apples, their skins holding small moons under dust. The building hums like a held chord, and the stairwell smells of soap and thawing earth.

I turn the key and jars answer with light, beans, millet, forgotten basil, each one a weather. Outside, buses comb the avenue for sparks; inside, every seed is a folded instruction for rain.

I imagine spring as a patient mechanic: grease on her wrists, sunrise in her teeth, coaxing roots through cracked brick, teaching pigeons the grammar of blossoms.

When morning opens, I carry one packet downstairs. A child cups it as if it were warm bread. In his palm the future weighs almost nothing, yet the whole street leans toward it.