Greenhouse Eclipse

The glasshouse holds its breath, ribs of metal warm as a slow shadow walks across the beds. Tomato vines lift their palms, startled pilgrims, and the basil smells like a dimming bell.

Outside, the street folds its noise into a pocket. Inside, we listen to droplets re-decide their fall. Light becomes an old photograph curling at the edges, refusing to burn.

I touch the soil and feel the eclipse pass through it— a cool pulse traveling root to leaf. Even the ants pause their thin highways, to read the temporary night.

When the light returns it is not the same light: more intimate, as if it learned our names. We water the stems as though apology is a verb, and the air fills with a green, forgiving hum.