Apiary on the Seventh Floor

At dawn the roof unzips its tar-black coat, and boxes of bees warm like brass instruments. Below, buses drag sparks through rain-slick avenues; above, one dandelion survives in a gutter seam.

The keeper lifts a frame, amber script still wet, hexagons humming like held vowels. Pollen dusts her wrists the color of old gold, and every wingbeat edits the noise of traffic.

Courtyard laundry turns in the same breeze, white flags, small moons, surrendering nothing. A child on the fire escape points upward, learning that sweetness can be made from concrete.

By evening the skyline darkens to bottle glass. The hives breathe heat into the cooling air. Night trains pass like long metallic rivers, and honey settles, slow light, in waiting jars.