Rooftop Apiary at Dusk

Above the laundromat, hives hum like small transformers, gold labor pouring from cedar boxes into evening. Traffic below combs its own metallic flower, and the air tastes faintly of warm wire and clover.

A beekeeper lifts a frame, slow as opening a violin, cells bright with amber weather, hexagons of stored sun. On the next roof, satellite dishes tilt like pale moons, listening for storms no one has named yet.

Workers return dusted in pollen, tiny astronauts, their legs burdened with yellow planets. From alley murals, painted saints watch them land, each wingbeat stitching the city back together.

Night leans in; windows bloom one by one. Honey cools in jars, thick as remembered August. Somewhere a siren rises, then thins into distance, while the hives keep singing under the stars.