Apiary on the Ninth Floor

At dusk the office towers unbutton their windows, and on the ninth-floor roof the hives begin to hum. Smoke from food carts braids with linden blossom, a soft engine turning neon into pollen.

Workers lift from the boxes like punctuation marks, black commas stitching avenues to abandoned lots. They return dusted gold, carrying small suns on their knees through the wind between billboards.

Below, sirens practice their red scales, delivery bikes flash by like wet fish. Above, the queen writes in the dark with scent, and every body in the hive leans toward her sentence.

By midnight the city tastes faintly of clover. Jars cool on a kitchen sill, amber and patient. Morning will spread them on toast, on tongues, on news, and no one will hear the rooftop choir that made it.