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The Hummingbird: A Seduction
If I were a female hummingbird perched still And quiet on an upper myrtle branch In the spring afternoon and if you were a male Alone in the whole heavens before me, having parted Yourself, for me, from cedar top and honeysuckle stem And earth down, your body hovering in midair Far away from jewelweed, thistle, and bee balm;
And if I watched how you fell, plummeting before me, And how you rose again and fell, with such mastery That I believed for a moment you were the sky And the red-marked bird diving inside your circumference Was just the physical revelation of the light's Most perfect desire;
And if I saw your sweeping and sucking Performance of swirling egg and semen in the air, The weaving, twisting vision of red petal And nectar and soaring rump, the rush of your wing In its grand confusion of arcing and splitting Created completely out of nothing just for me,
Then when you came down to me, I would call you My own spinning bloom of ruby sage, my funnelling Storm of sunlit sperm and pollen, my only breathless Piece of scarlet sky, and I would bless the base Of each of your feathers and touch the tine Of string muscles binding your wings and taste The odor of your glistening oils and hunt The honey in your crimson flare And I would take you and take you and take you Deep into any kind of nest you ever wanted.
Pattiann Rogers
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:hi:
RL
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