Last rites for a hummingbird as my daughter’s death dress rehearsal
Outside bleary-eyed and barefoot, robe half-tied I search through rain-soaked thyme.
Tiny body limp behind the rosemary. A hummingbird, iridescent green matted
in the morning drizzle.
Inside, you don’t ask questions about what’s going to happen or if it will hurt, only plead
for us to sing hymns from the day you were baptized.
As I went down to the river to pray…
Standing in the mud, hummingbird in hand, it looks up with shallow breath.
One eye opens, shuts, opens.
In your bedroom, your Dad’s on the phone with hospice after we fought
about stopping your g-tube feedings.
Good Lord show me the way…
Outside your window, I press the creature’s beak to the feeder’s red syrup,
the slow flicks of his tongue, which grow steadily.
Maybe if I take him inside near the wood stove?
O, sisters, let’s go down…
Maybe if I rinse the dirt away?
Let’s go down, come on down…
I stroke his head and say, sorry, I don’t know what to do.
And then I discover a gash behind his ruby throat.
Down to the river to pray.
And after his burial, I anoint your bath water,
with orange blossom and rose oil one last time.
Regina Gort-Betances
Regina Gort-Betances is a retired chef who prefers thimbleberries to huckleberries. She grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where fiddleheads, chanterelles and skinny dips were abundant. She now lives in Puerto Rico, the island of her heritage and in the bounty of mango trees and sea turtle snorkeling. Regina's first collaborative poem was published in North Dakota Quarterly. She has been subsequently published in Rova Magazine, Deep Wild Journal and The Journal of Latina Critical Feminism. After the deaths of her two daughters and her father in the same year, Regina spent time living in a van with her husband and son. They traveled as they put their family back together. After time in rehab, years of therapy and writing, she found a grounded place to create from and a way to honor the legacy of her journey through grief.
@reggieinrincon
reginagort.com
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