Making Allowances

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.