Rooftop Apiary

At dawn the rooftops unzip their tar-black coats. Hives wake in wooden breaths, amber and warm. Between satellite dishes, bees lift like commas from a sentence the night forgot to finish.

Elevators cough below them, steel throats clearing. Traffic pours its mineral river through the avenues. Each wingbeat writes a small gold vowel over laundries, fire escapes, wet brick.

They return dusted with park pollen and window-box thyme, carrying whole neighborhoods on their knees. In the comb, sunlight hardens into edible glass; the city learns sweetness by repetition.

By noon, sirens fold into distance like red paper cranes. A keeper in a white veil listens with bare palms. Inside the hive, summer is a thousand patient engines, and every street is translated into honey.