My aunt Rose told me that it is always good for lovers to keep honey mixed in with their food.
"Keep it around the house at all times," she said. Replace slick butter with pure honey on bread.
Feed it to your love from a deep silver spoon. Throw open the curtains draw free honey from the moon.
Use it to lend a gold glow to wan lustreless skin. Fold it into honey cakes, drizzle it into honey drinks.
Add a satin honey glaze to the matte surface of everydays. Voices sing polished with honey's burnishing.
Shall we then beloved become keepers of bees, invite an entire colony of workers, drones and a queen
to build complex multicelled wax cities near our home by the sea? Would that mean that salt
would be savoring through our honey? And you say, "What of it?" and give me a kiss
flavoured with honey and sea-salt mix. Integrated honey you say. Kiss me again is what I say
because the salt in that kiss could be the sting from old tears and we need to make up for all our honeyless years.
Lorna Goodison
Lorna Goodison was born and grew up in Jamaica where she still has a home. Her collections of poetry include I Am Becoming My Mother ???? Heartease (both published by New Beacon Books). Her most recent collection, in which this poem appears, is Guinea Woman, New and Selected Poems (published earlier this year by Carcanet).