Bodies in the Air
- Bodies in the Air
If you want to talk, just say the word, hummingbird.I want to know when you will flick-flack from crepe myrtle
or beautyberry bush. In Morocco’s Erg Chebbi desert,spiders cartwheel down sand dunes and how can you
not smile when you learn there’s an Italian antcalled graminicola that somersaults in the forest?
Splash tetras leap from the river onto leavesfin-stuck, just long enough for eggs to grow
then swell into a very fine fry. Salamanders backflipover the face of a rock to avoid birds, whip their tails
up and over, throw their long backs till tiny forelegs reachfor the clouds. So when you finally speak it into the air
and let it leap off — remember it’s the only thingI’ve ever wanted from you. I want to see your words
hover in the air — watch them be the only feathered thingon this blue planet that can zip backwards, even upside down. [End Page 117]
Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of World of Wonders, the Barnes and Noble 2020 Book of the Year, and four poetry collections — most recently Oceanic (Copper Canyon, 2018). She is professor of English and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Mississippi.
