"Hummingbird" by Angela Sucich

Photo Credit: Ramona Edwards, obtained and licensed through Unsplash

Hummingbird

you think you are flying but
you're in your ocean again  
not seasick    never seasick  
but treading the swells   body
shaking  like a spray-paint can  
the mist shushing  the voices
as it covers all blues with blue
flowers  and you step back to
beautiful in the abstract
and far away   you need me
to tell you   you have a good
heart   it beats so quickly I
might miss it   out-sounded by
that pearly growl of wings no
one can see but must be there
vibrating infinity
at eighty times per second
as you hover     head and chest
exposed    the feathery blur
a stillness in that golden
hour you always go back to
you could have been anything

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Angela Sucich holds a Ph.D. in Medieval Literature from the University of Washington, where she also taught literature and writing courses. She has worked as a freelance writer for twenty years, wrote a history book on a Seattle trade union, and more recently, has had her poetry published in such journals as Nimrod International Journal, Cave Wall, and Atlanta Review. In 2021, she was honorably mentioned for the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, and in 2022, her chapbook, Illuminated Creatures, won the New Women's Voices Chapbook Competition (Finishing Line Press).