1
The way a man pushes
the hair from his face, open-
palmed, a small
thing, endlessly repeated: the hair falls,
he pushes it back again,
unplanned legacy, mechanical round
learned in some forgotten
gesture seen years ago,
his father,
not noticing his son
not noticing him.
2
This is what I see on television: a hummingbird
afloat in the current of its own making,
wings slowed to a speed the eye can perceive.
Poorly planned model, I think,
beak and body too small to contain
its own hunger. Sucking,
greedy,
rarely stopping
to cock its head, stare
unblinking
at the surrounding sky.
This is what I have learned to love,
the small, the overlooked—
the hummingbird sitting still.