From Whispers to Roars (Quarantine Tales anthology), 2020
They’ve got you wrong, science and stories
Hinged on speed and size, slack-jawed
Incantation: beats per minute/heart and wing
All inside out. Your story does not flit or
Blur, your glassy emerald feathers do not
Streak. Your voice is not a Doppler whirligig
Or mismatched metronome in the patient air.
I see you, hummingbird. I see you waiting on the
Twig of a branch from the trunk of a ragged
Pine tree that has loomed for two hundred years.
I watch you waiting between pin-boned breaths
And skittered flight. This is your time. Not the
Buzz and thump of frantic destination, not the
Trill and flash of places we would be.
I listen to us wait.
I listen to us. Wait.