last night the clock struck three, a lonely bird chirped,
and I walked into the kitchen on padded feet.
slid onto the floor with the jar and a spoon from the sink.
I live off your rations for sweetness here
and the jar has never been mine to take.
but part of you knew that if you fed me honey
I would spill like milk into your arms.
the cool linoleum calls, and the rest of your house is asleep.
weeks of episodes of clandestine honey-eating
and still we have not been caught with sticky fingers.
but left alone I licked it clean
rambling and mead-drunk in my own head, by my own hand.
there are other people in your house who use this jar
and who am I to empty it
when it is clearly marked with someone else’s name?
the strange room I occupy here, landlord, is simply mine to rent.
collapsed on the floor, silent and raving
I wonder if you will stir and creak down the stairs.
I wonder if it would please you to see me this way.
stung, foolish to forget that honey comes from bees.
apis mellifera, sucking dry the red clover
in a valley up north where it’s green.
it is selfish to empty this jar.
to hope the way I think of you is the way you think of me.
(as published in Rushlight, spring 2015; plain china, February 2017)