Rooftop Apiary at Dawn

Between chimneys, the hives wake before trains, their cedar boxes breathing sugar and tin. Light spills across satellite dishes like warm milk tipped from an unseen hand.

Bees lift in a gold grammar, commaing the air, threading laundry lines, antennae, basil pots. Below, the avenue coughs into traffic; above it, wings keep a cleaner meter.

I stand with smoke on my sleeves and listen: the city has a second heartbeat here, small engines tuned to pollen and weather, a choir no headline can interrupt.

By noon they'll vanish into glare and glass, return carrying dust of linden, clover, rain. All day the skyline pretends to be stone, while honey gathers, patient as sunlight.