End of June

The hummingbird feeder fell last week
due either to mechanical failure or a raccoon
stretching arms and legs with a taste for sweet.

I've been looking for a similar replacement since
but haven't found one like it yet so
I filled the old one and set it on a stand

It feeds and consumes ants
drawn by the sweet to their
drowning

The hummingbird I thought
might have moved on or starved
during the week I neglected him

But I saw him this morning out there
siphoning below the floating drunkards
and gave him a refill, relieved.

I dreamt this morning of an older love
turned to bitterness, distrust, even hatred
worse in the dream than in reality, but still a symbol

And then you, this morning I thought it seemed
likely that you would walk in and join me here
and we would get past the questions and the tension

And ease right back in to liking each other
but you didn't, and I know you won't, and find
the waking world littered with broken things

A black ant floating in sugar water
with fifty of his dead mates, crumpled in a wet ball
when I dump them out, antennae seeming to twitch.