Rooftop Apiary

Above the laundromat, a quiet republic of boxes painted the color of old sun. The hives breathe in the updrafts, as if the city had a gentle throat.

They rise and fall with the traffic below, small commas in the blue sentence of morning. Their wings stitch a map between water towers, and the rusted hinge of the fire escape.

The keeper listens through a veil of mesh, hearing a warmth like rain in a teapot. She knows the taste of this hour: tin, clover, a faint electricity from the billboards.

By evening, jars line the sill like amber bulbs. The streetlights flicker on, and the bees return with pockets full of light, their bodies ticking like soft clocks no one remembers to wind.