Apiary Over Asphalt

At dawn the rooftops warm like old instruments. Hives wake in wooden boxes painted weather-blue. Bees rise through steam from laundries and bakery vents. The city opens a thousand brass throats.

They stitch pollen from balcony basil to median weeds, gold dust on taxi mirrors, on a child's red helmet. Under the overpass, clover glows like banked embers; traffic above is a river dragging its chain.

By noon their shadows flicker on glass towers, tiny commas revising the sky's long sentence. In conference rooms, screens bloom with silent storms while outside each flower keeps a private clock.

At evening they return, heavy with borrowed sun. The hive hum deepens, a cello tuned in the dark. I press my ear to the rail and hear tomorrow being built from sweetness and wingbeat.