Poetry

Mystery

For Ned

I don’t know why hummingbirds,
sparks of joy we love to watch,
refuse to share with one another
the feeder with its plastic flowers
hung from clothesline on our deck,

or what night creature plucked
the blooms, revealing holes through
which he drank to leave the feeder
emptied, stained, dangling from
its fragile hook, or why I wrote