Rooftop Orchard at 2 A.M.

Above the laundromat, tomato vines keep midnight, their leaves cupped like small green ears to the highway. A train passes and the trellis trembles silver, rainwater in buckets learning a new percussion.

I thread a hose between satellite dishes, each droplet lit by aircraft warning lights. Basil releases its dark, peppered breath, and steam from vents writes weather on my wrists.

Down below, windows flicker through insomnia; screens bloom, go black, bloom again. Here, peaches hard as fists hold their summer, patient as moons behind construction cranes.

When dawn unbuttons the east in pale copper, pigeons arrive like hurried librarians. I leave with soil under every fingerprint, carrying a sunrise that smells of mint and rust.