The honeycomb - Pauline Stainer

They had made love early in the high bed,
not knowing the honeycomb stretched
between lathe and plaster of the outer wall.

For a century
the bees had wintered there,
prisoning sugar in the virgin wax.

At times of transition,
spring and autumn,
their vibration swelled the room.

Laying his hand against the plaster
in the May sunrise,
he felt faint frequency of their arousal,

Nor winters later, burning the beeswax candle,
could he forget his tremulous first loving
into the humming dawn.

Pauline Stainer