Night Shift in the Seed Vault

At midnight the seed vault unlocks with a sigh of frost. Drawers slide out like small wooden constellations. Each kernel holds a weather not yet born, a thunderhead folded to the size of a fingernail.

I label envelopes while trains breathe overhead, their iron lungs shaking dust from the rafters. On my tongue: copper, soil, the taste of rain remembered from summers that have not happened yet.

Under the lamp, millet glows like fish scales, beans darken and brighten when I turn them in my palm. The city above keeps burning its neon prayers, but down here roots rehearse their quiet grammar.

At dawn I lock the cold room and step into traffic. Pigeons explode from the station roof like torn paper. In my coat pocket one stray seed clicks against my keys, a tiny metronome counting toward green.