How the Bat Gets In

by Wren Tuatha

I don’t yet know how the bat gets in.
But it always ends by the banister,
cat acrobat,
the cat
taking flight.

There’s a number, abstruse to me,
that equals the count of insects
hauled into the whale mouths of bats
in my yard on a June night.

The moment death is born,
it is immortal.

I count clues, map the moment
I should have known the seller
was lying to me about that car.  Scooping,
when all I saw at dusk in Syracuse
was my chance at locomotion,
brain bats distracting, chewing on my scrutiny
with strobe light puppet aliveness.

My brain bats are houseflies of consciousness,
lifespan of a thought until my eye catches
a task forgotten or other shiny tempts.
No sooner is a gorgeous scarf of words born
than it is pulled from my hands
into the nearest kite tree.

Cat on the banister does laser point math, calculates
weakness — the prey’s, her own,
geometry of stairs and a slanted ceiling.
Factors when to multiply or divide her limbs,
when to launch, to spoon with fangs,
how to land with wings slicing
at her face, counting seconds and pulse beats
until the stillness.