Hummingbird, or, First Blood at Witching Hour
The night I first retched hummingbird
feathers my mother said it was normal.
Two a.m., both hands tremble-clinging
to porcelain, the beak lodged
in my abdomen. Propeller wings
buzzed against lining, bowl
filling with bile.
She stroked my back, okra-slimy
like a newborn’s cheek. Peach
and lime-green clods of plumage
launched from my throat.
You get used to it with time,
she said. The ache a pin prick
if I only slowed
my stuttering exhales.
Legs trembling, I limped back to bed,
red blotch on the white sheet
I threw off when I woke wailing
her name. She demonstrated.
Swell. Release. Swell. Her polyvinyl
gaze through the window pane:
the face she wears when my father
returns at midnights, the lock
clattering with his key. His voice
the ring of tinnitus.
At the plush mattress edge, head
in her lap, ear against her tummy:
a buzzing.
anachronism as electrocardiogram
nesting, act ii
last night you woke to a
d
r
i
p
splattering amoebic
on your shoulder,
your bedroom wall
streaked moss-brown,
air gutter-dank.
her head atop the floor,
crown uncapped
as the leak pooled
in its cavern.
her headless body mopped
the rainspill at your bed
side, headless vocal cords
whisper-humming ever
la-a-a-asting love
over the tongue-wet
tile slosh.
you picked up the basin
of her, just before over
flow. laid a microfiber
towel to soak the pool
in her place.
walked outside barefoot
to turn her upside down
over dahlias dried stiff
as pine cones and bean
black daisy weeds.
hurry, hurry, she said.
and this, all night.
Choiselle Joseph is a writer from Barbados. Her recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in PREE, petrichor, Rust & Moth, Gone Lawn, and elsewhere. Her current project is Hummingbird, an in-progress chapbook exploring daughterhood through myth and surreal imagery. They are an editor at The Saartjie Journal. Find them on Instagram @_choiselle_.
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Heavy Feather Review 