Hummer

Hummer BY PASCALE PETIT I think of the unspoken, his airless room, the words my father coaxed from his lungs with the help of oxygen. The suitcase I found on the shelf above his bed, with its jars of mummified occupants, how I unwrapped the photo curled around each hummingbird couple like a sarcophagus, the smell of honey mixed with formaldehyde, and how, when I prised the male from the female, their throats glowed like embers just above slit chests. I saw it all then—a boy with his slingshot in the forest at dawn, his hands pinning the hummer’s wings, the penknife slicing through its narrow breast, its tiny heart torn out— still beating, hot on my father’s tongue.