Green Flame

Slender as my ring finger, the female hummingbird crashed

into plate glass separating her and me 

before we could ask each other’s name. Green flame, 

she launched from a dead eucalyptus limb.  

Almost on impact, she was gone, her needle beak 

opening twice to speak the abrupt language of her going, 

taking in the day’s rising heat as I took

one more scalding breath, horrified by death’s velocity. 

Too weak from chemo not to cry 

for the passage of her emerald shine,

I lifted her weightlessness into my palm. 

Mourning doves moaned, who, who, 

oh who while her wings closed against the tiny body 

sky would quick forget as soon as it would forget mine