The Hummingbird

 1

His body shivers when he comes out of the shower

drying himself, he says, I haven’t felt this way in forever

Felt what? I ask

and watch him trying to find the words for what he means

but eventually he just shakes his head, Like this.

Since lunch I had known we would not work

I want to live alone and remain childless;

he wants a family, his dream so sweetly simple:

children upon whose plates he could place morsels of food

his eyes go somewhere else when he imagines it.

Before the shower, and the bed, and the way

he looks at me, there is the bookshop—

he buys The Guest Cat because I tell him I like it

I buy Ada Limón’s The Hurting Kind and give him

‘The End of Poetry’ to read; he isn’t moved

but he wants to understand why I am.

We get ice cream and talk about our exes

He says, You’ve been through a lot

and I spin it to a positive because

I don’t want him to think I’m damaged

or in need of consolation.

In my hotel room he kisses me so hard our teeth collide

it is not a good kiss, but I don’t mind; afterwards

he shows me he understands Ada’s poem—

I do not even have to ask.

2

I hope, selfishly, that we can be something for a little while

he sends me a message:

you deserve all the love in the world—from someone else

I leak tears like a corroded tap, knowing

I have to let him go, but first

we have one more weekend together

in which I try to memorise the lines and curves

of his body, still hoping we might get more time,

knowing we won’t, wondering if he is just here

to open the door, so that somebody else—not he—

can walk through it.

But who else will look at me while I eat my cornflakes

like I am the most precious thing in the room

like everything I am is enough, like there is something worthwhile

in the way I place the spoon into my mouth?

3

He is reading The Hummingbird by Sandro Veronesi, which is

about a man who can hold himself steady

while the world around him changes—

just as the hummingbird does with its numerous

and powerful wingbeats.

When he takes off my socks, slipping the heels off first

then pulling the toes, saying, Boop! I am thinking

of the hummingbird. When he is beneath me, naked,

the clean muscles of his arms under my hands

his face open with desire for me, I am thinking

hummingbird hummingbird.

Hummingbird, as in, I never want this moment to end

I want to hold myself in the nectar—

let everything else go on, but let us stay here

so I’ll never have to forget the feel of his lips on my skin

or his voice asking if I want to hold his hand

at the beach, or the way he curses when the sand

sucks his feet into the oncoming tide. He says

We have to make the most of the time

and I walk behind him up the hill so he will not see me cry

a little, into my sleeve. At the top we can see the horizon—

even the clouds are holding the sun in stasis—

I take a picture so I can look at it and remember.

We would not work: he snores and thinks cleaning

the toilet once a week is excessive, he wants a family

and I just want to be touched. Hummingbird.

We are almost back at the car now

I can tell he is hurrying the goodbye, but he still lets me

pinch his cheeks. He asks me

What would you like to come back as in your next life?

I would like to be a horse, free to fly across the field

And you?

A tree, he says, to live hundreds of years and watch

the world change, to witness it all and just be still.

And isn’t that just like the hummingbird?

4

There are small things that will always remind me of him

the book he bought me, a bowl of cornflakes, hummingbirds,

Ada Limón’s line I love so much:

I am asking you to touch me

with him, I never needed to ask.

Going home, I put on Taylor Swift and we sing along together

I want to look at him so badly but I can’t bring myself to turn my head

instead I imagine another life

one in which he is a wide-brimmed rain tree and I am a horse

standing beneath the umbrella of his branches

in that life, everything is simple.

Now, we have to make the most of the time

but the time is over, even hummingbirds must rest

I get out of the car and he looks and looks and looks

I open the gate. I turn around. He is still looking at me.