Bat Burial
The black and brown bundle on the front lawn
shaped itself to a small wrecked umbrella
with a rat-head handle and a trailing
pair of crooked claws.
Perhaps the power lines overhead
had killed it. My neighbour called his boys
from indoors. With their Dracula imagery
they were momentarily impressed.
'You can see how they hang upside down',
he told them. 'We know that, Dad.'
A click of one's phone camera,
and they were off.
George and I poked the corpse,
noted the ants beginning work,
black ooze on the grass.
Neither of us fancied picking it up.
It could just go on lying there.
But at nightfall, its smell upset my wife.
She let me off digging a hole for it.
But which of the three wheelie-bins
provided by our municipality
should it go in? 'Recyclables', no;
'garden'? not exactly; 'garbage', then.
Gingerly, I bag it in plastic, tie
firmly the bag top, lower it in,
black plastic its sarcophagus,
our garage its mausoleum.
This morning it smells of death.
Wednesday 6 December 2006
Max Richards
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