The city dims behind its wall of sound.
She’s planting what she hopes will not be found—
A cache of garlic, carrots, winter rye,
Seeded for the day the city dies.

The blackberries don’t ask about the grid.
The beans climb their poles as they always did.
She walks the rows, pulls weeds, forgets the news—
The world can end. Her hands already knew.

The power died in April. Then the phones.
She heard the highways empty, songbirds flown.
By June the silence was the only news.
She kept the rows. The peppers came in twos.

The fence is where the world stops making sense.
Inside, the rows are thick, the green is dense.
She bends between the stalks like someone praying,
Her breath a hymn she doesn’t know she’s saying.

No manifesto. Just the turning year.
She plants by moon, by frost, by what’s still here.
She reads the leaves, the roots, the morning light.
She weighs the harvest. Eats alone tonight.

They said the end was coming. Maybe so.
She planted beans. She watched the peppers grow.
The soil doesn’t know the world is through.
It only knows her hands. Her hands already knew.