What the Bat Taught Me

It’s easy to zero in

on moths and lacewings

clinging to beams of light.

 

Make believe you know

the next move, smooth

your place in the wind,

 

and you’ll never go hungry again.

 

 

Elegy in Triplicate

I.

 

I leave a slice of pumpernickel

atop your headstone

for the juncos and grosbeaks

 

you used to feed religiously

before you left me

to feed yourself to the earth.

 

 

II.

 

Gravestone angels,

their lips never moving,

throw their voices

 

into the wind until

naked sycamores

begin their singing.

 

 

III.

 

Every day that I keep

moving forward, I leave

one emptiness

 

behind me just to briefly

fill another emptiness

in front of me.

 

 

Grief-Stricken

Yesterday, when I finally took down

the empty hummingbird feeder

 

you refilled every day without fail

up until the day you died,

 

a male ruby-throat mistook

my broken heart for a crimson flower.

 

I let it stab its needle beak into my chest

for a few quick sips until it flitted away

 

like a spark from a struck match

the wind won’t let catch fire.

 

To my surprise this morning, though,

I found its nearly nonexistent body

 

lying in the dried-up remnants of your yard,

an emerald green and blood-red jewel

 

glinting in the unrelenting sun.

And now tonight, the tiny wound

 

above my heart has begun to suppurate

into its own tender flower of yellow-green

 

petals and tendrils of sepsis that I feel

twining endlessly through my body,

 

turning my blood from nectar to venom.