Rooftop Apiary at Dusk

On the supermarket roof, the hives breathe cedar and heat. Traffic below combs the avenues with red light. A beekeeper lifts smoke like a soft question. Evening opens its brass mouth over the glass towers.

Bees return carrying pollen the color of rust and apricot. Their legs are tiny saddlebags of borrowed weather. They land, vanish, reappear in the hum's dark grammar. I can hear summer translating itself into honey.

From this height, windows flicker like shallow ponds. People drift room to room, bright fish behind curtains. The city pretends it is made of steel and schedules, yet every rooftop keeps a small wild pulse.

Night settles, blue ink in the seams of concrete. The beekeeper seals the lids, palms sticky with light. Somewhere inside the hive, wax moons are rising. Tomorrow will taste of clover no map can show.