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Bats in the Basement
1
We like the dark
to go quiet for the space
in our room to expand
before we have time
to rub our voices together
before the good-night
or good-bye
2
Our brother sleeps without
pillows, without caution
and when he seizes
he falls from stalactite
drip, from calcium ceiling
he falls
to the rocking chair feeling that night
is an act of dangling
3
We are twins in twin beds upside down
sisters in sheets that jump when we jump
at the sound of a body his body hitting the floor
we fly
4
Morning insists. We are not bats.
We are not winged. The room is a room, not a cave.
Over detergent
and laundry
our mother finds a family of bats
asleep near the furnace.
She catches each one
in a tin coffee can
and carries the bodies
out of their cool
coal mine existence
into the day.
5
“I was a bat in another life,”
our brother says
as we sit side by side
in the yard
and open bags of black
sunflower seeds
the same slow way
we crack open fortunes
from cookies
6
When daylight recedes
we lie the wrong way
with our feet under
pillows, eyes
half-closed at the foot
of the bed
We listen for movement
for the near loss
of stillness
or love
It is easier, we think, to make
ourselves fanged animals
at night
to become the bat
the winged shadow
of surprise
to burrow into the
certainty of hours
into the can of darkness
carried into day
Return to Volume 6.1
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