The Hummer Tree,
Sacred pillar of our school community.
Site of countless hummers.
All-season hummers.
The Hummer Tree bare
And party to blue-lipped, quick, cold-trembling hummers.
New growth, new blowers and blowees.
Hot, sweaty, teenage-fumble hummers,
Welcome cool shade and relative darkness
So as not to showcase the hummer too much,
Or get too hot.
And of course, dry, scratchy leaves falling on my head,
Both heads,
All the heads,
Giving head hidden from the Head
And her Deputy Head hummers.
No matter the season it was always
Cool to be given or to give
A hummer under The Hummer Tree.
(originally published by Mad Swirl, February 2015)
Simon Pinkerton is a humour and fiction writer, very famous and drives a very elegant posh car (Hyundai) and lives in a sought-after area (a shed near Heathrow airport). Please read his writing at McSweeney’s, Word Riot, Minor Literature[s] and other sweet places.