Rooftop Apiary

On the library roof, hives breathe through snow, their cedar boxes warm as closed hands. Below, the city drags its metal weather through crosswalks salted white.

At noon, one scout lifts into brittle light, a comma of amber against glass towers. She maps heat leaking from laundromat vents, and the late oranges stacked at the market stall.

Inside the comb, January is a low instrument: wings shiver, honey thins, darkness listens. Each cell keeps a teaspoon of summer, sunflower dust folded like gold thread.

By dusk, the skyline softens to blue smoke. I press my ear to wood and hear persistence, a small republic humming under frost, teaching the cold how to be temporary.