The greenhouse is a box of perfect humid light

The greenhouse is a box of perfect, humid light,

where the sensors click and the mist begins to spray.

Everything in here should be winning the fight,

but the ferns are turning a brittle, paper grey.

It’s a failure of the dirt or a rot in the root,

a quiet rebellion against the glass and the heat.

I watch a brown leaf take its final, slow route

to a puddle of water that is perfectly sweet.

They have every reason to flourish and to grow,

with the chemicals balanced and the sun kept in check.

But they’re folding themselves in a way that I know,

with a heavy, dry weight hanging round the neck.