Rooftop Apiary

At midnight the rooftop hives breathe warm cedar, and the freeway below unspools its silver river. Bees sleep in a humming knot, small engines folded, while billboards bloom and fade against low clouds.

I lift the lid and the dark smells of rain on brick, of thyme planted in paint buckets, of iron and wax. One worker wakes, drawing a slow circle near my wrist, as if measuring the pulse of this borrowed height.

Dawn leaks through antennae, through scaffold and glass; the city turns its face, all windows becoming water. They pour out in amber weather, stitching crosswalk to garden, writing pollen into the margins of concrete.

By noon the hive is a throat full of summer. Trucks grind south, sirens comb the avenues, yet inside, a single queen keeps time with her wings, and sweetness gathers where no meadow was promised.