Greenhouse Above the Weather

Night lifts the city like a tray of wet glass. On a rooftop greenhouse, basil leans toward aircraft, its leaves holding rain in small green mouths, while traffic below turns like a dark river of wires.

Inside, heat blooms from clay pots and rusted rails. A moth beats the window, pale as a torn receipt. Tomatoes glow in the sodium hush, little planets with bruises, ripening anyway.

I water them at midnight, listening to pipes sing, to distant sirens bending into minor keys. Steam writes and erases my face on the pane; behind it, constellations tremble in puddles.

By dawn the clouds unzip and cranes begin their prayer. The first train arrives carrying bread and newspapers. I pinch a leaf; the air tastes bright, almost electric, as if morning were something we had grown by hand.