Apiary on the Water Tower

At two a.m. the rooftops hum like held breath, air conditioners exhale warm metallic weather. Between satellite dishes, the hives glow amber, small cathedrals lit from the inside.

Bees return late, dusted with neon pollen from convenience-store lilies in plastic buckets, from median weeds that learned to drink exhaust, from window boxes singing over traffic.

I lift a frame; it drips a slow summer map, gold folded with rain, with brake light, with moon. Each hexagon keeps the city in miniature: a siren thread, a bakery dawn, a child awake.

By sunrise the water tower blushes copper. Commuters pass below, carrying their weather. I cap each jar and label it simply: August, though it tastes of iron, jasmine, and thunder.