Christine Tsen

This Manuka a carroty sheen,
brackish velvet hastening to sugar
fragmenting as chimes on the tongue.
Those chimes re-strung by his jaunty fingers.
I held those small darkening hands
through his childhood, never expecting
anything so beautiful as dangling honey off the branch
in the shape of two outstretched hands of light.
There are other kinds of honey, too, comb and cream
raw and sweet, entering where the song of light goes.