Facts about hummingbirds

Over breakfast I turn to my husband to tell him
that hummingbirds can beat their wings
up to fifty times a second.
It’s how they get their name,
the hum such movement makes.
He returns, did you know
that’s the same frequency as a low G?
I find a recording of a low G on piano.
It doesn’t sound right, to me,
the one deep note, too heavy,
I wish I could hold one to my ear
and compare.

There’s one, just now, perched above the feeder
on the eclectic line that runs down our street,
another quiet sort of humming, another dream.

A scientist has found that their tongues
are not like straws at all, but forked, like
two fists for grabbing as much nectar —

This is how we talk now, and I am not sure, if
it is how we love or how we spar. It does seem if
there were no birds, we’d run out of things
to say to each other.

The hummingbirds are jousting
for a spot at the feeder. I am not sure
how to solve this. Their hearts beat
250 times a minute. I feel like
if I held one in my hand,
my heart would explode
from trying to keep up.

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Elizabeth Joy Levinson is a biology teacher in Chicago. Her work has been published in Whale Road Review, SWWIM, Cobra Milk, Anti-Heroin Chic, and others. The author of two chapbooks, As Wild Animals (Dancing Girl Press) and Running Aground (Finishing Line Press), her first full length collection, Uncomfortable Ecologies, was published in July, 2023 with Unsolicited Press.