Coronae
Four times before nightfall, a hummingbird visits the empty crown
feeder that sways from a beam under the porch. There is no sugar
in the house, and striped grey moths leave halos of blood-red
droppings on the edges of window screens, on silk curtains, on my pillow
while I sleep. They are powdery and tough to catch. I trap one
between my fingers, shove a door open for release as it wets my hand
with a pungent pheromone that won’t wash off. From my room, I watch
online as men in Florida throw dollar bills out the sunroof of a car, crowds
hazardously spooling and scrambling. A few days later, George Floyd’s final
words float on a banner through the New York sky: O is a thin-ringed
empty planet. O is a nimbus of torture around a bubble of grief.
White ranunculus open in glazed green planters where I pressed the bulbs
down into moist potting soil a few months ago. A late forcing for an early
spring bloom, the flowers start as balled fists then unfurl like peonies
in a ceremonious burst revealing coronae velvet as midnight void of moon.
The shape of the circle never lets you out.