Rooftop Apiary at Midnight

On the supermarket roof, the hives breathe like accordions. Neon drips down the loading dock and pools in the wax. Bees lift through steam from the bakery vents, small priests carrying pollen across concrete weather.

At midnight they visit balcony herbs, basil and bruised mint, threading between satellite dishes glazed with rain. Each wingbeat writes a brief bright syllable on the black notebook of the city.

By dawn, jars line the back room shelves, honey holding the sun before it arrives. Inside its amber: clover, diesel, linden bloom, the soft metallic taste of August trains.

I open one and the room changes key. Traffic hushes to a distant cello string. From a spoonful, whole neighborhoods return, lit from within, patient as gold.