Category Error
by Luke Hankins
Hummingbirds are fighting
over the flowers in the garden again,
because beauty doesn’t make anything
immune to cruelty.
Imagine a world in which each
beautiful creature could be trusted—
and isn’t each creature beautiful?
The sleek, streaked coat of the tiger.
The iridescent scales of the snake.
The shockingly blue eyes
of the shooter on the evening news.
Luke Hankins is the author of two poetry collections, Radiant Obstacles and Weak Devotions, as well as a collection of essays, The Work of Creation. A volume of his translations from the French of Stella Vinitchi Radulescu, A Cry in the Snow & Other Poems, was released by Seagull Books in 2019. He is the founder and editor of Orison Books, a non-profit literary press.