Greenhouse Inside the Observatory

At dawn the dome unbuttons its rusted eyelid. Ferns breathe where equations once burned in chalk. Rain taps Morse along the copper ribs. Dust lifts, a quiet constellation of spores.

Tomatoes hang like small planets in the cracked telescope, their skins holding weather from a kinder atmosphere. A blackbird nests in the aperture, singing through glass that forgot how to magnify war.

I water the beds with a chipped enamel cup, and steam rises, soft as pages turning. Roots thread through old wiring under the floor, teaching current to move at the speed of patience.

By noon the room is green with borrowed light. Every leaf keeps an answer it will not translate. Still, when wind rolls the dome and the sky appears, the whole place leans upward, listening.