Batty in Tucson

BATS: a trio of poems

A.M. P.P.

of course
the bats they
pee on you when they
swarm from the bridge
base in the evening – it’s the
first thing things do upon
waking – and it’s not like they
can smoke a
cigarette.


TRUCK DOOR OPTIONAL

we could
not decide which was
more amusing neath the
Santa Cruz bridge on remote
Ina Road: the frenzied bats that
swarmed from the rafters – or the
yahoos who showed up and
got drunk.


CLOWN SUIT

if you squint the
swarming bats take on
variant costumes, look like
paperclips or boomerangs or
a murder of crows – but no matter
how the bats turn chameleon – their pierced
shrieks always sound like a
mother.

-Ryn Gargulinski