Apiary Above the Last Tram

At dusk the last tram drags a ribbon of sparks through rain that smells of copper and basil. On the depot roof, wooden hives exhale heat, small engines tuned to the weather's throat.

Bees return wearing the map of the city on their legs: gold dust from window-box marigolds, black soot from tunnel mouths, a little flour stolen from the midnight bakery.

I lift a frame and the comb glows amber, almost lit from inside, like stained glass remembering a chapel that burned. Each cell holds a brief summer no headline kept, a grammar of sunlight written in hexagons.

Below us, schedules blink and erase themselves. Above us, wings braid the wet air into a single note. I carry one jar home and set it on the sill; morning enters, and the room begins to hum.