Hummer

A few feet away in fuchsia,
wings are inferred.
She signs the air with herself
so fast the whole benediction
is visible, then gone,

& when I look around she sits
resting on the line among plastic
clothes-pin—synecdoche,
metaphor, or just a sense of humor?

Air's ampersands, seahorses
of the aether, Thomas Morton believed
they live on bees, & Loranzo Newcomb,
thinking to taste their nurture, went about
inhaling the essence of trumpetvines.

This one's an ounce emphasizing
the grossness of chickadees,
hinting at the design of the Concorde
that used to boom out over the Atlantic
each morning around 8:30,

& so quick she has few
effective enemies. If extremes
truly contain their opposites,
she & I have at least
that in common, along with
a life among the trees.