Apiary on the Ninth Floor

At dawn the roof unbuttons its tar-black coat. Between satellite dishes, white boxes breathe. Bees lift like commas from the mouth of August. Below, buses drag their bright metal weather.

I stand in smoke that smells of thyme and rain, listening to wings tune the air into wire. Each worker returns with yellow on her knees, small suns folded under a velvet body.

In the stairwell, neighbors carry groceries, news, never seeing the orchard hidden in height. Yet jars on their tables catch this secret altitude: linden, rust, and the faint electricity of glass.

By night the hive cools to a single hum, as if the building dreams through a wooden heart. Stars snag on antennae, then drift west. Tomorrow, the city will flower again in flight.