Just some notes

I found a bat on the school run today, a little velvet purse in the road. I only saw it because I went off course to put something in the bin. It was lying, quite still, on the ground. When I picked it up, it cried out, but I could not hear a sound. I couldn't take a photo as I didn't have my phone. The memory of it won't leave me. I put it up high, on a fence post, away from the buses, and it crawled towards the trees. I think it was very young; it was terribly light and fine-boned but full of will. I was surprised how weird it was, this mammalian flying creature, almost constrained by its design when not air-borne.


I found a tiny bat on the pavement
it had a carnivores' mouth
cut like a shark's, nicked, at an angle,
a clear bead of viscous liquid
like honey at the entrance of its anus
small intelligent eyes

it moved by hunch
inside the cloak of itself
hunch and push, fine claws
on the edges of a kite
wings fine as calf leather
mole skin, back of a mouse
but spinier, a face I won't forget
fierce as it crawled, hunched and crawled
away from the traffic, from me
up into an elm

i worry for the bat, the youngest thing,
making its way,
should i have drip-fed it water?

Its mouth opened as I took it
let it crawl from my hands, let it be

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