Rooftop Apiary at Dusk

Above the laundromats, the hives breathe warm tin-sweet air. Sunset pools in satellite dishes like spilled copper. Bees lift from the frames, small lit coals carrying the day's pollen through traffic noise.

Their flight writes cursive over water towers, a script only wind and basil can read. From cracked planters, tomato blossoms ring with a gold hum thick as violin resin.

I open a box and the city exhales sugar. Wax comb glows, little rooms of amber weather. Each cell keeps a map of alley, park, fire escape, every bloom translated into slow light.

Night climbs the brick and switches on its windows. The swarm settles, a dark heart folding inward. Somewhere below, sirens braid with crickets, and honey cools, holding August in its throat.