Hummingbird Skull. {poetry}
{source}
How beautiful
is the skull of a hummingbird?
She asked you,
her tongue
sliding past her lips,
her sharp small tooth,
Licking them for the smallest
splittest second.
That’s how beautiful
She couldn’t believe
It was.
The skull of a hummingbird.
And you,
Smirked at her.
She’s one of those,
You thought.
She must have
a not so secret fondness
she reserves
for subway rats too.
She’s one of those
who unabashedly smile
when they scuffle
their potentially diseased bodies
across the subway tracks.
‘Cos the high-heel-clicking women
appropriately squirm,
But she’s found her identity
in making an open show
of feeling a kindred spirit
to fat brown-tailed rats.
She must be one of those,
You thought.
Too sane
to be quite a drifter,
But still she sups
on grownup faerie-tales
and she pretends
they’re cultured.
She must be one of those,
He thought
of her.
And poor him.
It kept him away
from the small
incredibly strong
beating pulse
of the statement.
The truth of the sentiment.
How beautiful
is a hummingbird skull?
So beautiful,
They’re making coveted pieces
out of them.
They’re dipping them
in gold
and silver,
Maybe copper,
And stringing them
around warrior women’s necks.
And he didn’t know
How much further
her mind slunk down that slope:
How? Who? Why?
Was there some creatured human
With Velcro-pad fingers
Who climbed up trees in the Amazon
in Vermont
in Mozambique
in delectable, imaginary
country created in mouth?
Was there some human
with eyes
that pixelated
dangerous, beautiful,
charcoal ember,
Whose heart beat
like on methamphetamine,
Who climbed the trees,
Clasped his hands, Swish,
And caught them?
These faeries.
Who did that?
Could do that?
And then: How?
What would a person have to do,
How magic would they have
to become
To sluice
the skull of a hummingbird
from out of its vibrating body
To separate that bone
From iridescent
gummy skin?
What exactly did that sound like?
Were there pops
of electrical currents
when it happened?
Was the air
Suddenly scented tangerine?
*****
A man got on the subway
Just then.
Homeless drifter.
“I’m gonna be with someone
Just like her,”
he said.
He told everybody.
It crushed
And broke
And tumbled her heart
As gently
as sadly,
As powder white hummingbird skull
being crushed to dust
between fingers.
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Brittany Connors
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