Rooftop Apiary

On the supermarket roof, the hives hum after rain. Neon from the pharmacy stains each drop a thin blue fire. Bees return like commas to the sentence of their boxes. The city keeps speaking, and they keep translating.

Between tar seams, volunteer clover lifts small fists. A train passes; the frames shiver with amber weather. Inside, wax rooms glow - architecture of breath and sugar. Even the wind lowers its voice to enter.

I open one lid and summer exhales in March. Pollen dust gilds my sleeves like borrowed sunlight. Far below, carts rattle, coins ring, doors sigh open. Above, thousands of wings tune one patient chord.

At dawn, jars line the sill, holding condensed afternoons. Each spoonful tastes of rooftop gravel, linden, thunder. What was noise becomes meadow on the tongue. What was concrete learns, for a moment, to flower.