Rooftop Apiary at Dusk

Atop the grocery roof, the hives breathe warm tin air. Pallets of oranges below leak their bright weather. Commuter trains comb sparks through evening glass. The beekeeper lifts a frame like turning a page of sun.

Thousands of wings tune the hour to amber. Smoke curls from the can, a soft gray prayer that settles on neon signs and satellite dishes, on laundry lines strung between small republics of brick.

In each cell, a drop of summer is being taught to keep. Clover from vacant lots, linden from courthouse steps, rainwater tasted from rusted fire escapes— the city translated into sweetness, syllable by syllable.

Night arrives carrying sirens, basil, hot asphalt. He seals the boxes, listens to the dark hum hold. Somewhere a child opens a jar and the kitchen fills with the low gold memory of a hundred rooftop moons.