Rooftop Apiary

On the hospital roof, the beehives hum like small engines of summer. Nurses on break lean against the rail, white shoes catching evening copper. Between air vents, lavender grows in crates the color of rain. The city exhales through a thousand windows.

Each bee returns dusted with pollen and traffic-light glow, threading between antennas, satellite dishes, laundry lines. Below, sirens braid with violin practice from a fifth-floor studio; above, a crescent moon lifts its bright pail.

Honey gathers slowly, as if time were a warm spoon. Hands that held charts and needles turn the frames, careful as prayer. Wax combs shine like tiny apartment blocks lit from within, sweetness stored against the blunt weather ahead.

At midnight the roof is a dark harbor, hives moored and breathing. Someone leaves a thermos, still warm, near the door. In the morning the jars will catch the sun like amber bells, and the day will begin again, wing by wing.