Apiary on the Overpass

At dusk the overpass hums like a held cello note between lanes of sodium light, hives glow honey-warm smoke from a tea-kettle drifts through the guardrail and the city loosens one brass button at the throat

Bees rise in commas, editing the traffic they taste clover from vacant lots, basil from balconies return with yellow dust bright as construction chalk each landing a tiny verdict on what still blooms

Below, buses drag rain across their windows above, wax chambers thicken with August I lift a frame and hear weather becoming architecture sweetness stacked in hexagons against the roar

By night the queens go dark, the asphalt keeps singing moonlight pools in oil slicks, silver and bruised I walk home with gloves in my pocket, hands sticky with sun carrying one jar that remembers every street