Rooftop Apiary at Dusk

Above the laundromats and satellite dishes, the hives breathe out their amber weather. Smoke lifts in a blue ribbon from the keeper's hand, and the whole roof listens with a thousand gold ears.

Evening pours itself into the water towers. Windows begin to flower along the avenue, each one a small furnace where someone stirs a pot, someone irons a shirt, someone waits beside a ringing phone.

The bees return heavy with the grammar of clover, with pollen dusting their legs like roadside sunlight. They vanish into cedar boxes as if entering chapels built for appetite and song.

Night comes on softly, button by button. The city keeps its iron pulse below, but here the honey is still being written, slow as a star lowering itself into a jar.