Apiary Above the Traffic

At first light the rooftops unbutton their frost. Boxes of bees hum like small generators. Steam from bakery vents drifts through their flight paths, a warm river climbing the brick.

Workers lift from the comb in bright punctuation, gold dust on their knees, grammar of pear trees. Below, buses kneel and cough at red lights; above, each wingbeat edits the morning.

A keeper in a blue jacket opens one lid. Honey breath rises, dark and medicinal. She moves slowly, as if turning pages in a book that stings when read too quickly.

By noon the skyline tastes faintly of clover. Windows hold sun the way jars hold amber. What the city builds in steel and noise, they answer in sweetness, cell by shining cell.