Apiary Above the Sirens

At dusk the rooftops unzip their gravel coats, and the hives breathe warm copper into the wind. Below, ambulances braid red thread through avenues; above them, bees lift like punctuation from a prayer.

They read the city by taste: rust on water towers, linden bloom tucked behind a billboard's elbow, diesel drifting from the bridge like bitter incense, sunset pooled in satellite dishes, thin as honey.

In my gloves, the frame hums against the bone, a small engine made of weather and insistence. Each cell holds a lantern of labor, gold thickening where sirens cannot reach.

By night I jar the dark with a wooden dipper. The kitchen window keeps one square of moon for us. Tomorrow the streets will spend their noise again, and still these bright-winged workers will write sweetness over concrete.