Anna's Hummingbird, Nesting

When the fledgling lifts his needle bill,
who knows the tenderness in her
tiny drumroll heart? Who knows what pins her
to the flickering air?

God save us from the slow raccoon
God save us from the mocking crow
God save us from the wide-eyed cat
God save us from the fingered apes.

She is the stylus of an etch-a-sketch,
the point of a glitter-pen;
frantically motionless; hanging; the sky's
avian crucifixion.