Making Allowances

You’re vegan, for your heart, but you’ll eat honey.

You’re vegan, for your heart, but you’ll eat honey.
Not uneasy about the mistreatment of bees,
the sweet amber flowing from their stolen combs.

And I love silk, the liquid lure of it. Although
I know about silkworms’ slavery, their addiction
to the opium of mulberry leaves.

Nothing is inviolate — honeycomb nor cocoon
nor the enclosure of your ribs, now crimped;
latches of bone where your sternum was refastened,

the cage from which your honeyed heart won’t slip.

About the author

Laurie Koensgen lives and writes in Ottawa. Her poetry appears internationally in journals, anthologies and online magazines. Recent publishers include Stone Circle Review, Literary Review of Canada, The Madrigal, flo. Literary Magazine, and Rust and Moth. Laurie is a founding member of the Ruby Tuesday Writing Group. Her fourth chapbook, this clingstone love, is forthcoming with Pinhole Poetry.