Hooding the Hummingbird
Like a wound-up toy, the hummingbird,
throat shimmering, wings a-buzz,
darts in through our door, briefly open
for the breeze, and—already frantic
to be free—whirs high into the skylight shaft,
and beats against the hard blue
inaccessible sky.
Dish towel still in one hand,
I grab the stepstool
with the other, climb up
teetering under the dome,
heart racing with fear
I’ll kill rather than save
the bird, as he flies and dives
around me, warding off
his only possible release.
All I can do in one fell swoop
is toss the thin towel over him,
grab the ends, stumble off the stool,
fling the bundle through the doorway,
and watch with amazed joy
as the towel slips to the ground,
and he takes wing.
About the Author: Judy Kronenfeld’s six full-length books of poetry include If Only There Were Stations of the Air (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2024), Groaning and Singing (FutureCycle, 2022), Bird Flying through the Banquet (FutureCycle, 2017), and Shimmer (WordTech, 2012). Her third chapbook is Oh Memory, You Unlocked Cabinet of Amazements! (Bamboo Dart, 2024). Her most recent book is Apartness: A Memoir in Essays and Poems (Inlandia Institute, 2024). Judy’s poems have appeared in four dozen anthologies and in such journals as Cider Press Review, Gyroscope Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, New Ohio Review, North of Oxford, Offcourse, One Art, Rattle, Sheila-Na-Gig, Valparaiso Poetry Review and Verdad.
Image Credit: René-Primevère Lesson Histoire naturelle des oiseaux-mouches Pl.81 (1829) Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
