The Hummingbird, Too, Knows of Cupping and Heartache by Joe Jimenez

by Joe Jimenez | Published Online on October 28, 2011

Say
Hummingbird arrives at the sun
seeping over the horizon line;
Say Hummingbird tips the moon
cloud-ward; Say the
nectar-swoon, desveladito,
herb broom,
kite tune slides and slides—
Watch it seep, papito.
Watcha!

“Sweep, papa. Sweep,”
bird’s tiny kite reads. Delivery
zooms a sweeter night bloom.
The monte still sleeping

brings cupping—
Pajarito, his tiny kite, gestures
and detalles amongst a trail of tiny
alphabets. Block-like.
Bones of the wrist flex, curve, bind.
In code. Finite messenger.

This hummingbird is no mogul
no prophet
just a tiny bird with fast wings and a small heart

[ache].

[Notes found in the Tiny Journal of the Mexican Long-Nosed Bat]
1. What we didn’t know was that hummingbird loved bat, and still, he passed the kites. Yes, murcielago. Even when risking his single moment with bat, hummingbird flew with the miniscule kite affixed to his leg.

2. A quite tremendous feat for such a small foot.

3. Inter-species amor. Y prohibido, tambien, guey. And only in those dim hours right at dusk or in the feeble folds of dawn, the two could dance, and dance, they did, hurriedly, abrupt. It was in the full flap of his wings--swift, punctuated lines--that hummingbird told bat, Te quiero. Te quise. Te quisiera tener todo el dia.

4. Sonar permitted bat to hear this. Sonar and fur. Adroitly-devised sonar that bat devised to unlock desire, lock onto wingflutter-dialect- thrum of his beloved humming pajarito. Blushing, bat listened. Listen, guey. Listening, he made it go: Shhhhh. Shhhh.

5. The two also made a hum thrumming twang; hummingbird-bat forge new idioma.

6. In place of insects, bat tried nectar: green cloud sage, ligament-pink flor, languid firebush--not sweet enough, no.

7. In place of hummingbird, murcielago tried other bats’ company. Futile. The night, after all, is a giant event. An unfurling thing. A lonely thing.

8. The wings just don’t match, he thought, watched the moon fall apart before the long arms of the sun, anticipating the same to occur once he’d whispered to the hummingbird’s tiny feathered wave that he, too, withheld a kite, a statement of lovely, block beats, and a sad departure.

9. I cannot. I cannot, bat thought, clutching the small kite to his shaking heart. And here, the blotches, sad, sad white buttons, this new blight that ate his wings, revealed the reason why bat could not love hummingbird por vida. c/s]

Joe Jimenez is the recipient of the 2011 Gertrude Poetry Chapbook Prize. The collection Silver Homeboy Flicka Illuminating the San Juan Courts at Dawn is forthcoming from Gertrude Press.

This article appeared in the October 2011 of ignite Magazine.