Greenhouse of the Old Observatory

The dome is open like a peeled fruit, moonlight pooling in the ribs of steel. A fig tree has learned the language of lenses.

Dust lies soft on the control panel, its switches wearing halos of pollen. Bees patrol the cables, humming old equations.

In the cracked eyepiece, a fern unfurls, each frond a quiet algorithm of shade. The night smells of wet stone and sap.

I stand where constellations were measured, watching moths orbit a lantern jar. The sky arrives, but it arrives as birds.