The Orchard of Quiet Satellites

In the night orchard, the trees are radio towers, branches threaded with cold light and iron pollen. We walk the rows, counting the hum, learning which stars are man-made and which are old.

A wind slips through like a technician’s breath, tuning the leaves to a minor key. Some fruit glows blue as a held screen, some is dark, the seed of unspoken weather.

I press my ear to the trunk and hear the city far away, rehearsing its outages. Between the pulses, a vast quiet stands up, an animal made of distance and salt.

Morning comes with dew on the antennas, and the orchard forgets it was listening. We carry home a basket of stillness, its weight a small gravity in our hands.