Genderqueer as a Hummingbird

by Audrey T. Carroll

We know nothing about gender
& even less outside our species
 
There are categories of hummingbirds
we have named along a spectrum:
 
male-like males           female-like males        male-like females        female-like females
 
& even this we only glean
from an exterior, the observable:
 
plumage brightness                 &                     bill length                   &                     tail length
 
It is quite possibly impossible to know
anything beyond this, anything about their
 
gender roles                 gender expression
 
without imposing foreign concepts
 
 
Gender is a complex web, something
 
             known but unknown              
 
                          inside of us but beyond us
 
                                               named but individual              
 
                                                                          performed                               
 
                                                                                       expressed
 
                                                                                                    seen                                        
                                                                                                                unseen
 
                                                                                                                                cultural                                   
                                                                                                                                               social
 
                                                  the us to whom we speak in the dark
 
Our own gender is a cosmos
& we are children with plastic telescopes
hoping to catch a glimpse of Venus or Mars
or something in between & mostly what we see
are a million stars we cannot name,
a million stars we can barely even describe

Audrey T. Carroll is the author of What Blooms in the Dark (ELJ Editions, 2024) and Parts of Speech: A Disabled Dictionary (Alien Buddha Press, 2023). She is a bi/queer and disabled/chronically ill writer. She can be found at http://AudreyTCarrollWrites.weebly.com and @AudreyTCarroll on Twitter/Instagram.