THE BAT

THE BAT

THE BAT

In dusk, from in among the walnut tree
and its bearing down upon the damaskina,
although we never see the bat unwrap
like a sticky sweet from the paper
 
of suddenly frictionless voiceless wings,
it begins to bi-, to trilocate, to be
anywhere at once in air's old film, wavering
with half-seen insects – it's in the field,
 
the garden, even underneath the canopy
of vineleaves that, by day, shades the little patio.
We watch the sky a dropping sun's turned gray
after an hour of lemon, mango, watermelon –
 
though this still lets some light be gleaned
through a wing like a sallow, puffed-out cheek,
a torch shone through a bloodless hand,
but gone in the second you understand
 
as though showing how exactly we must leave
each day – and do – a gathering of senses, sights
too small or intricate to count as insight,
too brief to form what we'd call belief.
 
The bat, that master of departures, is lost
to night, forgetting as it misses each leaf
and every branch: a figure of omnesia,
the way the world desires to be the past.