Today, I take a nap in my afternoon.
It is, of course, the middle of your night.
I lie on my back and imagine us lying back-to-back.
As hemispheres have it, we are.
My shoulder blades are almost up against yours.
The soles of our feet are almost pressed together.
Only the world is in between us.
In your morning, you sweep up glass
where a dove mistook a pane for nothing at all.
In my evening, I hear the call of a stitchbird,
endemic, endangered (extinct on the mainland),
previously thought to be a member of the honeyeater family,
recently revealed to have no close living relative at all.
It is the only bird known to mate face-to-face.
Its Maori name is ‘hihi,’ meaing ‘ray.’
(‘Hihi o te ra’: ‘sunbeam.’ ‘Hihi kokiri’: ‘x-ray.’)
‘Hihi,’ pronounced one giggle, not two greetings.