The Blue Moon Review

Myotis, a Bat
by Taylor Graham

How long have you measured our house
in the dark, seaming it
with tiny stitches?
We've spent the daylight washing
walls and polishing mirrors,
while you hung with your pleated
widow's wings.

Bat? We'd say, and feel the house lift
airier.  Broad-eared sailor
we never saw, but felt your passing
blacker than new-moon dark.

Now we find you 
wrongfully folded,
not put away.
Unmoving blip
on the mopped
linoleum's radar.

Now we learn you
by your burnt-brown mask,
your honey-silked fur.
We can stretch your wings
(one broken) against a guide
that for all its field-marks
will never fly.