Bat

As the sun draws blinds and walks away
the house-lights dim from yellow to grey
and flighty featherweights floating by
like retina spots against the sky
are culled from the breeze by something quicker
with a savage discontinuous flicker.

You sometimes see it and sometimes not,
a fault in the air, a flying blot,
an absence winging from wall to wall
and you ask, was there anything there at all,
while softly through the occluded light
flits for an hour in black and white
from daytime coffin of cave or cellar
this airborne mouse with skin umbrella.

-------------------------

© Brian Fewster,
Published in English in Education 29/1, Spring 1995

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