Greenhouse in Orbit

At dawn the station turns like a slow key, unlocking a ring of basil and rust. Water lifts in bright beads, small planets drifting from the roots to my sleeve.

Outside, night is a sheet of hammered tin, punctured by cities breathing sodium gold. I prune a tomato vine and Earth answers with thunderstorms stitched along two continents.

Every leaf keeps a grammar of sunlight, veins translating fire into edible quiet. In the ventilation hum I hear old orchards, wind ladders, bees loading the afternoon.

When we deorbit, the glass will cloud and crack, seeds will sleep in labeled envelopes. Still, one green tendril curls around a bolt, writing the future in a language of reach.