Boil
Michael Schmeltzer
I know things. For instance, when I talk to certain men about how a hummingbird's tongue laps up nectar, their eyes donut-glaze, and they bore a hole clean through to the core of me, right where I hide my secret-self like a pit of a cherry. I'm not psychic, but I know what they're thinking. I also know the exoskeleton of a cricket is cousin to the jaw harp, but one plays music for the moon, the other for the sun. I listened to one chirp, caught between the screen and bedroom window. For days I listened, feeling awful for my curiosity, needing to know what happens when we're trapped. Some nights I hear hissing from my mother's stove. Her homemade nectar boils over on the hot coils, bright red snakes laying eggs of steam. I know heat; I know how to hatch anything.