Museum

A swarm of stuffed hummingbirds
broke free from their pins and plaster,
flew quick and calculated, single file,
through a crack in their plastic casing.
Soon, the buzzing reached
a fully synchronized hum
as many tiny wings beat back
invisible dew above our heads.

At first we were all alarmed;
small girls ducked and shrieked,
parents yanked wrists and ran,
and some stuffed antelopes and chimpanzee skeletons
scrambled for the door just as the vibrations
reached a deafening level.
Most of them made it out through
the broken window or the fire escape,
but we had nowhere to be until 3:30
and still hadn’t seen the traveling mineral exhibit,
so we decided to stay.

The hummingbirds headed immediately
for the glass flowers. We conferred and estimated
that their ranks were somewhere in the tens of thousands,
and once their beating wings neared the display,
glass cases and delicate Honeysuckle shattered
in the vibrations. Undeterred, some birds
ducked into the mouths of blossoms
of a big blue Delphinium;
others headed for the delicate Columbines.
All the while, the Trumpet Vines shrieked
and some liberated Gypsy Moths
swam into the forgetful head
of one particularly hungry Nepenthe.

We found our way to the minerals
and took cover in the commotion,
hunching inside two halves of a tall geode—
all purple and sharp on the inside,
many-toothed like some sea creature’s mouth—
until the buzzing lulled to a distant whine.

Wading through ground diamond dust
and many fallen phosphorescent wings
in the dusty model of an abandoned museum,
we knew the futility of holding onto
something so tightly it turns to sand
between your locked fingers
and is a monument only
to disappearance.