Bat

A bat flew into my room... and I recoiled, My arms shielding my head instinctively. Blind, winged, blundering, mole, It clung by a sliver of claw to a far corner. Vile stain of a grave umbrella! Repulsive! A gibbet-rag — inert, inert and ugly; A sack of foulness. Sudden, a searching moonbeam Picked it out. Two leaden flames its ears, Perfectly formed. The furry beat of its heart, A feather on a pagoda, pattering soft as rain. Poor pipistrelle, in your pauper's membrane, Wafer-thin as gauze... the huddled wings Coiffing the small collapse of your Smokey, ash-bud face... Lean monk in perpetual Lent, Your brothers are swooping, fat, In moon-milk lappings of flight! Hermit, your dim, round eyes Are begging bowls of beads. I cannot tell, As you lamprey-cling to your ache in the niche of the night, If you are a Jinn, a Jonah, malignant troglodyte, — Kaleidoscope of feeling, — A peeling, shriven sprite, Or a hurt, gone quiet, healing.