Down the chimney, in the middle of the night, its shadow
hovers in television’s flickering light— not bird
but bat feeding on its desire to escape from our anxieties. Crank open windows, shutter lights— it swoops in figure
eights over our heads— our broom dance to jump direction
Outside, outside— cuts an acute angle, slipping throughdarkness that resides on the other side. The silence of
departure makes us wonder if any of this is real. We
are the ones who will be extinct; and the bat will resumesurviving in its lonely ecology.
