Rooftop Apiary at Dusk

The city lifts its concrete shoulders to evening, and on the roof, six wooden hives breathe heat like small furnaces lined with amber script; a single smoker sends blue ribbons through laundry lines.

Bees return in loops of tarnished gold, their legs dusted with the yellow of distant balconies, petals ferried from window boxes and median weeds, a quiet commerce above the traffic's iron throat.

I pry one frame loose: a cathedral of hexagons, new honey shining as if light learned patience. Somewhere below, a siren tears the dusk in half; up here, wings stitch it closed again.

Night settles in the comb, slow and fragrant. The moon climbs the water tower and watches. In each sealed cell, tomorrow is being stored: sunflower, rain, and the taste of warm brick.