Rooftop Apiary, April

On the warehouse roof, the beehives wake before buses, smoke-blue dawn pooling in satellite dishes. A caretaker lifts lids like turning pages, and the city exhales warm bread from basement vents.

Bees stitch between antennae, laundry lines, wet tar, bringing pollen from balcony basil and cemetery linden. Their hum braids with freight trains under the river, a low cello note held through concrete.

By noon, sunlight clings to their legs in saffron knots. They return heavy, holy, ridiculous, drunk on flowers growing in paint cans, mapping air no zoning board can see.

At dusk the hives darken, small wooden planets. Windows ignite one by one along the avenue. Honey gathers in frames the color of old coins, and night tastes faintly of thyme and voltage.