Caleb Scott
I did not know hummingbirds
eat mosquitoes. I thought
their beaks were wired closed,
the sharpened tongue doing
all the work, flower to
flower to flower, ripping
past the dragonfly, the
butterfly for one last
drink before the tiny heart
dries up, trapped in that
forever dance of
sustenance. But this
one, flipping forward on
an invisible chord, stabs
madly at an unseen pleasure,
what flowerless cloud
of nectar is there
hung between cup of leaf,
unbloomed geranium?
She picks at the naked
air, the nearby
lantana vine
confused and drooping.
Then, in a perfection
of time arrested, her
body pauses
there, wings
a blurry thought
of movement. And with
that eye that hides
a million fires, she looks
as if to see what warmth
of body I might be
hiding. It was wrong of me
to believe she is
not seeking blood
like all the others.
***
Caleb Scott is a writer and actor. His plays and performance pieces have been produced and presented at venues in New York City and around the country, including Classic Stage Company, HERE Arts Center, La MaMa ETC, the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles, Diversafest in Tulsa and the Wooster Group’s Performing Garage. He is an associate artist with Colt Coeur Theater in New York and a founding member of the FLEET playwrights workshop in Los Angeles. Caleb’s writing has appeared in The Bellevue Literary Review, Nashville Review, Typishly Literary Journal and Eclipse, and his first book, U.F.O., was published in 2006 by PowerHouse Books. His films have screened in festivals all over the world, including the Toronto International Film Festival, Raindance in London, Cinequest in San Jose, Palm Springs International Film Festival and Aesthetica in York, UK. He has been a finalist for an Academy of Motion Pictures Nicholl Fellowship, a finalist for the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights Program at Juilliard, a nominee for Best Actor and Best Writer by the Kinsale Shark Awards, and his plays have been selected as finalists for the Playwrights Foundation Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Eugene O’Neill Theater’s National Playwrights Conference. Caleb is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the recipient of a Dartmouth Senior Fellowship in Writing. He lives in Miami, Florida.