Rooftop Conservatory at 3 A.M.

At three a.m. the city is a pocket watch left open, its gears of traffic ticking faint beneath the fog. On the roof, glass rooms hold a weather of their own, warm breath of soil rising through the metal grates.

Tomatoes glow like small lanterns behind wet leaves, and basil bruised by touch releases dark green thunder. A moth keeps striking the pane where moonlight pools, certain there is another sky just past the seam.

I carry buckets, listening to pipes murmur in the walls; water climbs and falls like practiced scales. Each seedling lifts its thin, translucent wrists as if asking music from the sodium lamps.

By dawn the east edge pales to unripe peach, construction cranes uncurl above the river. I lock the door, hands smelling of rain and copper, and leave a jungle breathing over sleeping streets.