Night Garden of Satellites

On the apartment roof, basil sweats in blue tins, and above it satellites cross like quiet stitches. Laundry on neighboring lines turns to pale flags, teaching the wind a language of sleeves.

I water the pots at midnight; the hose coughs silver. Each leaf lifts a small throat to the sky. Somewhere an air conditioner keeps one long note, a harmonium for insects and distant trains.

The moon lays coins on the tomato vines. Bees asleep in their wooden drawer dream of clover while data rains invisibly through them, a weather made of numbers and wing memory.

By dawn the city will reboot its engines and screens, but here, for one more minute, soil holds the stars. My hands smell of mint and metal. Morning arrives like a gate unlatching.