Apiary After the Blackout

On the hospital roof, the hives wake first, a low bronze chord under antennas and rain gutters. Night has gone out across the blocks, but their bodies still strike sparks from the morning.

I carry sugar water up six flights, past stairwells smelling of candles and wet concrete. The skyline is a field of darkened windows, each one holding its breath like a closed fist.

Then one scout lifts, stitching the air between towers, finding clover in a vacant lot split by rebar. Soon the swarm pours gold through broken silence, a small weather system refusing to collapse.

By noon, honey warms in the comb like stored sunlight. Sirens thin to distance; someone laughs in the alley. The city relearns its pulse from wingbeat and wingbeat, and evening tastes faintly of linden and metal.