Rooftop Apiary in Late Light

Up the service stairs, the day thins to copper, vent pipes breathing warm, the skyline a saw. Between tar and wind, the boxes hum like small engines stitched with gold.

The keeper lifts a frame—slow weather, wax lattices holding sun in their cells. Each bee is a comma in a long sentence the city forgets to read.

Sirens drift below, a river in the streets; above, the bees braid their slow orb of work. Even the cranes pause, steel necks bent, listening for the pasture they never saw.

When the lid settles, dusk closes its jar, and the rooftops taste of thyme and smoke. In the dark, I hear their winglight turning the air into a remembered field.