Rooftop Apiary

At the roof's lip, the city exhales in slow copper, steam from laundries curling like pale wrists. Hives sit in their quiet crates, listening to the traffic's metal rain.

The keeper lifts a frame and the morning opens, honey light pooling in wax cells. Each bee is a small argument for summer, a humming stitch in the air's torn sleeve.

Below, windows blink awake, a grid of small tides; taxis ferry their yellow ripples east. Above, the skyline loosens its black ribbons, and the bees write a bright grammar across it.

Later, in jars, the day's gold will settle, thick as a held note in the kitchen. We will taste the rooftop's weather, and the city's loud heart will thicken into sweetness.