Greenhouse in the Ruins

At the edge of the rail yard, a glasshouse breathes, its broken panes stitched with morning vines. Inside, rainwater keeps a patient score in rusted trays where basil learns the light.

A blackbird lands on a bent antenna, singing through static no station can hold. Dust lifts like incense from old instruction manuals, and every seed answers in a different tongue.

I pass the doorway and smell wet iron, coin-bright, green, almost sweet. The city, all engines and invoices, fades; here even silence has leaves.

By noon, sun spills through the cracked roof seams, painting ladders of gold on the concrete floor. What was abandoned has changed its name: not ruin, but a room the future borrowed.