Show Me a Buff-Bellied Hummingbird

and I’ll show you a happy camper, crowed
the ghost of Thoreau to no one in particular,
who just happened to be his best friend, btw.
But unlike the stolen pie still singing in
my stomach, I agreed to agree and kept quiet
about my former father who’d once talked
me into shooting at a little songbird when
I was six. (The fountain spraying from its
precious neck still bloodies my brain.) Having
left the woods, Thoreau and I entered a humble
hamlet and were met by a small girl whose
eyes were white like thimbles of milk. “Are
you my father?” she chirped, and I didn’t know
what to say, because it seemed like more of an
existential question anyway, as this was well
before Maury Povich had been invented.
“Have you seen my father?” I shot back.
“Yes, right this way,” she surprised me by
saying with the most charming flourish of her
tiny hand. And with that we were led back
into the forest, never to be heard from again.