To Elizabeth

Here is another poem, written in my pre-married/pre-children days. I love it how I would write poems about topics that I really had no idea about. But, isn't that just like me anyway--to wax poetic and think that though I had never been there, I understood it anyway.

Today I am dedicating this poem to Elizabeth--a woman with enough passion left to can. She'll know why.

"Honey"

Honey-buttered bread
is what we'd eat
those evenings
when she'd hold her breath
waiting
for me to settle down, to doze off--

the golden drips
that echoed the flame in her eyes
would fall and burn stains on the carpet under me.
Across the table,
she'd smile at my stickied, baby-tooth grin.

But sometimes,
from a corner
I'd watch her clean the stickiness
and observe as her glowing mask
would briefly crumble to surface
a bored woman--

drenched in all that honey
and dish towel hair
playing housewife, wiping nose--
patiently canning her passion in bottles
for pouring on later
like
honey
on bread.