Apiary Above the Freeway

The freight of evening climbs the fire escape, all copper wind and brake-light pollen. On tar-black roofs, the hives are warm as violins, and each bee returns carrying a syllable of clover.

Below, eight lanes unspool their silver weather, trucks grinding sparks from the dark. Above, the swarm braids amber around satellite dishes, a soft engine tuned to the moon's first nail.

A keeper lifts a frame like a page from an atlas: hexagons bright with stored sunlight, small bodies writing their gold cursive into cells that smell of rain and fennel.

Night settles its blue thumb on the skyline. Still the hive hums, a held note in the concrete. Somewhere a siren thins into distance, and honey thickens, patient as a star.