Apiary Above the Freeway

At dusk the roofs unbutton their heat, and the city exhales through wet gravel. Between satellite dishes and rusted vents, hives glow like small lanterned engines.

Bees lift through diesel twilight, threading sirens, laundry lines, steam. Their wings tune the air to a bronze hum, a string section hidden inside traffic.

I pry a frame and the comb answers: amber cells, crowded moons of labor. Rainwater pearls on my gloves like tiny planets learning gravity.

Below, brake lights river toward midnight; above, this sweetness keeps being made. We jar the sun in narrow glass and call it tomorrow for winter mouths.