A hummingbird’s heart
beats 1,260 times a minute,
wings up to 80 times a second
while hovering most of the day
before, at dusk, settling down
in a state of near-hypothermic
torpor, to conserve their energy.
Along with aquatic mammals,
they exhibit unihemispheric
slow-wave sleep: an open eye
enabling them to swim or fly
and monitor the environment
for threats while remaining alert.
What spellbinds me in the cocoon,
insect pupa, from egg to imago?
I burrowed into a dead language
to learn form for form’s sake:
the word for the second-to-last
stage of enlightenment in Japan
translates “bucket of black paint.”
Pit bull terrier, who made thee?
When will my annuities mature,
to redeem those that are fixed?
I approach the dragonfly in the
final stages of its morphology,
from moulting nymph to adult:
its elongated, predatorial body
can self-propel in six directions
in four different styles of flight.
Representing self-actualization,
transformation, and adaptability,
it will fly for a fraction of its life.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 23, Issue 6.
Virginia Konchan is author of four poetry collections, Bel Canto (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2022), Hallelujah Time (Véhicule Press, 2021), Any God Will Do and The End of Spectacle (Carnegie Mellon, 2020 and 2018), a collection of short stories, Anatomical Gift (Noctuary Press, 2017), and four chapbooks, as well as coeditor (with Sarah Giragosian) of the craft anthology Marbles on the Floor: How to Assemble a Book of Poems (University of Akron Press, 2022).See all items about Virginia Konchan
