She is crumbled like bread,
for black-fingered birds
to swallow. Swallowed,
she does not lose her dignity

in front of them. Only at night,
she withdraws to her garden
abundant with trumpet flowers.

Her baby hummingbird
hangs on a branch
of a dead poplar tree.

Within torpored silence
she waits with frailed wings
for its eyes to open,
like winks of a tiny, tiny God.