Carolina Hotchandani

Operetta

Scarlet blossoms coax the hummingbird’s
long-beaked hunger. Beside the bloom:
a flurry. Motion obscures

the wings that make the motion.

The deep-throated flower mocks
the tenor on stage. No sound needed to lure
a beauty, the winged one, in.

I hold my child’s hunger in my skin.

Am I the flower or the bird

as, from another room, I feel her cry
red-faced and hot
before she opens into sound?

A string in my chest tightens.

My feet sprout wings to meet her.

Carolina Hotchandani received her Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University. She lives in Omaha, Nebraska and teaches English at Morningside College. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Fugue, Feminist Studies, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and other journals.