Rooftop Apiary at First Light

On the tar-black roof, white boxes hum like lanterns, while morning lifts its sleeve from the glass towers. The bees rise in a gold punctuation, tiny commas loosening the city’s long sentence.

Laundry lines sway between satellite dishes, and a woman waters basil in chipped blue cups. Pollen drifts over traffic, over sirens, as if sunlight had learned to travel in small bodies.

At noon the skyline shivers in heat, steel and honey sharing one bright weather. Each worker returns with dust on her legs, a map of gardens no elevator can reach.

By evening, the hives breathe warm in their wooden sleep. Windows ignite one by one across the avenues. Somewhere below, a train enters the tunnel like a held note, and the roof keeps listening, sweet and awake.