The week our youngest leaves home, an albino
ruby-throated hummingbird hovers at our feeder, furious
brushstrokes of a painter without a palette, a blackjack
dealer’s shuffled deck. Her tail feathers—is she a she?—
are a meringue of whipped air. Her wings are opera
fans fluttering in box seats, the brief life of a child’s
snow angel before it disappears. Was it ever there?

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Erin Murphy is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, including the poetry collections Fluent in Blue (2024), Human Resources (forthcoming from Salmon Poetry), and the lyric essay collection Mother as Conjunction (forthcoming from Harbor Editions). Her work has appeared in Ecotone, Women’s Studies Quarterly, The Best of Brevity, Best Microfiction 2024, and elsewhere. She is professor of English at Penn State Altoona and poetry editor of The Summerset Review. Website: www.erin-murphy.com.

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