Читать книгу The Dream of Reason - Jenny George - Страница 10

Threshold Gods

I saw a bat in a dream and then later that week

I saw a real bat, crawling on its elbows

across the porch like a goblin.

It was early evening. I want to ask about death.

But first I want to ask about flying.

The swimmers talk quietly, standing waist-deep in the dark lake.

It’s time to come in but they keep talking quietly.

Above them, early bats driving low over the water.

From here the voices are undifferentiated.

The dark is full of purring moths.

Think of it—to navigate by adjustment, by the beauty

of adjustment. All those shifts and echoes.

The bats veer and dive. Their eyes are tiny golden fruits.

They capture the moths in their teeth.

Summer is ending. The orchard is carved with the names of girls.

Wind fingers the leaves softly, like torn clothes.

Remember, desire was the first creature

that flew from the crevice

back when the earth and the sky were pinned together

like two rocks.

Now, I open the screen door and there it is—

a leather change purse

moving across the floorboards.

But in the dream you were large and you opened

the translucent hide of your body

and you folded me

in your long arms. And held me for a while.

As a bat might hold a small, dying bat. As the lake

holds the night upside down in its mouth.