Apiary Above the City

Atop the laundry roofs, the hives breathe cedar. Traffic below combs itself into a single metallic hum. Smoke from the keeper's tin can drifts like pale prayer, and the evening sun breaks into hexagons on glass.

Bees lift from the frames, black commas in warm air, writing a grammar between satellite dishes and basil pots. Each body carries a dusting of park-light, yellow and brief, as if every flower in the district had learned to travel.

Inside, the wax rooms shine with stored weather: linden rain, courtyard mint, one sharp noon of clover. I taste the spoon and hear stairwells, tram bells, river stone, the whole city translated into amber syllables.

Night comes blue as ink on the skyline antennas. The hives settle, a small engine of sleeping wings. Somewhere a window opens, someone laughs, then quiet. On the roof, sweetness keeps its low, patient fire.