Apiary Above the Freeway

On the library roof, the hives wake before traffic. Rainwater beads on satellite dishes like small moons. Bees lift through steam from the laundromat vents, gold punctuation in the gray morning sentence.

Below, buses kneel and open their bright throats. A courier whistles, threading alleys with coffee heat. The city keeps striking metal against metal, and still the combs thicken, patient as breath.

I watch them map the air no map can hold, each return a rumor of clover from vacant lots, wild fennel from cracks beside the overpass, light translated into amber architecture.

By dusk the skyline hums in a lower key. Windows ignite, one by one, like careful matches. Night settles its coat over brick and billboard, and the hives glow warm with borrowed sun.