Rooftop Apiary at First Light

At dawn the city opens its metal petals, air vents breathe warm bread and diesel hymns, and on the twelfth-floor roof the hives begin their small gold argument with sleep.

Smoker in my hand, I write blue commas in the cold, bees lift through them like notes from a cracked violin, their bodies carrying pollen from balcony basil, from weeds insisting between rails and concrete.

Below, trains stitch sparks along the river's hem, office towers catch fire without burning, each window a jar of ordinary weather someone has not yet named.

By noon the comb will thicken with borrowed summer, hexagons bright as disciplined stars; I lean into the hum and hear the city answer, honeyed, plural, briefly kind.