Fantasy magazine

From Modern Mythcraft to Magical Surrealism

Butterfly-Hummingbird

by Magaly Garcia

Published in Jan. 2021 (Issue 63) | 213 words
© 2021 by Magaly Garcia.

The clock is ticking. Go
look for the black mariposa-colibrí.

Se nos va el tiempo.[1]

Do not stop searching for the butterfly-hummingbird—
the true chimera, not the hawk moth. Hurry your eyes.

Do not slow down. Sharpen your ears. Losing your seeking tempo
will prevent you from catching up to the mariposa-colibrí.

Se nos va el tiempo.

Do not flinch when you sight it. The earsplitting song
of the butterfly-hummingbird must be caught in this glass jar.

The clock is ticking. Do not pause or listen to the mariposa-colibrí’s
canto.[2] Its llanto[3] guarantees death to all who hear it.

Once jarred, toss it in fire when its wings crescendo.
Its ashes will cure your children of their sickness.

Se nos va el tiempo.

[1] Time is leaving us.

[2] song

[3] call

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Magaly Garcia

Magaly Garcia is a south-south Tejana born, raised, and living in a border town. She received an MFA in Writing & Publishing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has since been published in Along the River III, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s The Gallery (2013, 2015), VCFA’s Synezoma, Francis House (2017), The Chachalaca Review (2018), Boundless 2018: Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival, and Dreaming: A Tribute to Selena Quintanilla-Pérez. She is working at a library, writing a YA hybrid project, and practicing comics and animatics. When not working, writing, or drawing, she is summoning fantasmas to haunt her cat and cacti.