There is a bat in our spare room
knocking around,
shitting what we’ve been told is
toxic shit
trying to find himself.
We keep the light on to
halt his movements,
to make him think twice about
this apartment he haunts.
But I almost wish we didn’t.
I keep picturing him frozen in time
amidst the sagging cardboard boxes,
old guitars
and crates of shoes,
hanging as if suspended by a string,
wings spread out hopelessly.
He was listening last night,
when we kept our voices low,
and told the secrets
that couples do.
As you whispered,
I couldn’t help thinking,
what if we’d never bumped into each other
on that street in South Boston?
Would our bat still be out there
wild
soaring
through that strobe light sky
the city below him
transforming
as cities do,
or would he be here,
framed in the cracked window
of the spare room
of two strangers,
waiting for the light
to burn out?
Photo By: Michael McCarthy
