What Keeps Without Spoiling

I found it behind a box of old cable —

a jar of honey from a farm I've never seen,

his handwriting on the lid in marker, stable

enough to read. A date. The wax seal clean.

I held it up to the window and the light

came through gold, everything behind it blurred —

the oak, the fence, the neighbor's yard, the white

wall of the morning going warm and slurred.

He bought it at some stall on some Saturday.

Never opened it. Left it in the back.

The honey hasn't turned. I stood there, the gray

of the kitchen behind me going slack

while the light held.

While I held it.