Apiary Above the Tramlines

Atop the grocery roof, wooden hives breathe steam. Morning lays a thin coin of sun on copper vents. Below, trams comb blue sparks from the rails, and the city opens like a fist unclenching.

Bees lift in amber knots through air that tastes of iron. They map the winter market by scent: oranges, wet wool, bread. Each wingbeat is a small struck string, a harp of heat in the cold scaffolding.

A keeper in a paint-splashed coat listens with his glove pressed to the hive wall, as if to a far station. Inside, thousands of bright engines turn nectar and weather into one dark syllable: honey.

By dusk the skyline burns down to cinders of glass. The bees return carrying dust of linden and rust. Night fastens its black buttons over the blocks, and sweetness waits, warm as a held ember.