"The Bats" - Mark Wunderlich
Update: 2023-02-27
Description
The Bats
By Mark Wunderlich
I share my house with a colony of bats.
They live in the roof peak,
enter through a gap.
At dusk they fly out, dip
into inverted arcs
to catch what flutters or stings,
what can only be hunted at night.
Sunlight stops their flight,
drives them into their hot chamber
to rest and nest, troll-faces
pinched shut. I hear them scratch.
In darkness they chop and hazard through the sky,
around blue outlines of pines,
pitch up over the old Dutch house
we share. They scare some
but not me. I see them
for what they seem—
timid, wee, happy or lucky,
pinned to the roof beams,
stitched up in their ammonia reek
and private as dreams.
By Mark Wunderlich
I share my house with a colony of bats.
They live in the roof peak,
enter through a gap.
At dusk they fly out, dip
into inverted arcs
to catch what flutters or stings,
what can only be hunted at night.
Sunlight stops their flight,
drives them into their hot chamber
to rest and nest, troll-faces
pinched shut. I hear them scratch.
In darkness they chop and hazard through the sky,
around blue outlines of pines,
pitch up over the old Dutch house
we share. They scare some
but not me. I see them
for what they seem—
timid, wee, happy or lucky,
pinned to the roof beams,
stitched up in their ammonia reek
and private as dreams.
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