I held one once.
Weighed nothing,
my uncle says
of hummingbirds
whose hollow bones
float & splinter like dead
wood —Nana, her top-hand
skin fresh like powdered
butterfly wings, always paused
for hummingbirds.
She’d stand at the kitchen sink
underskin wrist-thin
like toilet paper or tissue wrap,
watch blurry-winged birds
wind-dancers, thrumming
for something sweet.
Unfeathered but bird-boned,
she too prized
delicacy, longed to kiss water;
like light to touch
without touching
move
with no regard
for gravity.

– L.R. Traverse