Rooftop Apiary

At dawn the roofs exhale last night's heat. Between satellite dishes, wooden hives begin to hum. The skyline lifts its glass shoulders into pale wind, and every window holds a small weather of light.

Bees rise like commas from the dark entrances, editing the morning into routes and returns. They pass laundry lines, steam vents, rusted ladders, carrying gold dust the color of old brass keys.

Below, traffic knots itself and loosens, knots again; above, wings keep the cleaner mathematics. One worker lands on my sleeve, tasting salt, then leaves me to my human noise and clocks.

By noon the city smells faintly of warmed honey. I think of sweetness as labor, not miracle: thousands of brief lives stitching blossom to concrete, making one bright sentence the rooftops can read.