Terminal Greenhouse

At Gate C, the ficus leans into announcements, its leaves translating departures into green percussion. A janitor’s mop water catches runway light, and the floor becomes a small, obedient estuary.

I prune dead tips while red-eyes climb the dark, boarding passes bright as moth wings in wet palms. The palms in their steel planters remember monsoon, though snow is stitched across the glass outside.

Somewhere beneath us, luggage belts keep turning, a low metallic tide that never touches shore. I mist each fern until it shines like a held breath, until even the vending machines seem to listen.

Near dawn, the east windows silver into weather. New flights blossom on the board, city by city. When the first child presses a face to the leaves, the whole terminal smells, briefly, of rain.