Newly fledged and lost 
the night of autumn equinox, 
a hummingbird slipped 
through my cabin door. 
She clung to the light fixture, 
sweeping the ceiling as if 
she’d descended from the spirit realm 
to teach me a lesson in housekeeping: 
always dust high 
windows before sweeping 
so dust won’t fall twice onto the floor. 

Her body rose and arched, 
a stained-glass shard twirling, 
a white-gold wedding band slipped
around a luminous neck, 
her body incapable of existing 
without movement. I wanted to hold her 
within my camera’s lens, but she 
hurled herself toward the moon 
rising outside the skylight, brittle bones 
snapping glass, her wings losing radiance. 
She paced the ceiling’s apex, 
frantic as a bat. I dimmed lights, opened all 
windows except the one I couldn’t reach. I hung 
red hibiscus and sugar water on the porch, lifted 
a broom’s soft bristles to her, hoping 
she’d latch on, allow me to lift her out. 

The local wildlife expert said I must wait 
for her to starve and fall, 
sweep her body out the door. 
Who could bear a dead hummingbird? 
All night I lay awake, matching my heart 
rate, breath, metabolism to the bird’s torpor, 
hoping she’d last the dark hours. I wished 
she’d arrived as a common sparrow 
I once saw bearing souls across Etruscan burial 
grounds, turning on thermals, diving 
into graves, delivering spirits into the seam 
between cliff ridges and sky, her wings easeful 
as dawn releasing the earth from darkness. 

By dawn, the hummingbird dragged 
the cabin’s baseboards, sinking beneath 
the window I couldn’t reach, 
all lightness drained from her body. My body 
ached and unrested, I found a ladder decomposing 
into goldenrod behind the cabin. 
I leaned it below the impossible 
window, climbed, popped pane and screen. 
I stepped down, nudged the bird with the pink bud 
of my flashlight’s beam. She side-stepped 
the sill, as if unable to believe 
in air. A breeze fluffed night 
from her feathers until they shifted like light 
on falling water. She heaved 
herself out, becoming a green swirl 
among fluttering red and yellow leaves. I swept 
shadows off the porch, opening 
myself to autumn’s shifts 
as pines lifted river mists from the valley, 
releasing them into air. 

Susan Tekulve’s

newest book is Second Shift: Essays (Del Sol Press). She is the author of In the Garden of Stone (Hub City Press), winner of the South Carolina Novel Prize and a Gold IPPY Award. She’s also published two short-story collections: Savage Pilgrims (Serving House Books) and My Mother’s War Stories (Winnow Press), the latter of which received the 2004 Winnow Press fiction prize. Her web chapbook, Wash Day, appears in the Web Del Sol International Chapbook Series.

Her nonfiction, short stories, and essays have appeared in journals such as Denver Quarterly, The Georgia Review, The Louisville Review, Puerto del Sol, New Letters, and Shenandoah. Selections from her photo essay, “White Blossoms,” appeared in Earth Hymn (Volume 6 of the KYSO Flash Anthology), with the full essay published online in Issue 12 of KYSO Flash.

Ms. Tekulve has received scholarships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She teaches in the BFA and MFA writing programs at Converse University.

Author’s website: https://susantekulve.com/