Rooftop Apiary at Dusk

On the hospital roof, cedar boxes breathe out warm sugar, and evening leans its copper shoulder on the rail. Nurses on break watch the traffic pulse below, while bees stitch gold thread through the antiseptic wind.

From open windows, monitors blink like patient constellations; inside, names are spoken softly into masks and charts. Outside, each hive hum is a small unbroken engine, a choir tuning itself to the hour between alarms.

One worker lands on a cuff speckled with disinfectant, maps salt, fear, and hand-lotion as if reading weather. She lifts again, carrying nothing we can weigh, only the rumor that sweetness survives stainless steel.

Night climbs the stairwell and the city switches keys. In the dark wood frames, honey thickens toward morning. Somewhere a child exhales, somewhere a door unlatches, and the roof keeps singing in a thousand amber mouths.