this is the story of how I killed the bat

“If you find a bat on the ground or floor that is not able to fly, you can ‘launch’ it outdoors with a full-size garden spade.”

The Skunk Whisperer, totalwildlifecontrol.com

or why—I can’t figure out how to alter the telling

             this is the story of how Jaime died—I don’t know why

I opened the door to get the mail and found the bat

curled into a furry ball I thought might be

a gift from the local stray, bigger than a mouse

smaller than a breadbox or mailbox.

             Jaime was a nurse during the Korean War

             and held her old bones like a museum display—

             thick, wooly mammoth bones you could hold onto

             and be carried, cared for, healed.

I nudged it with my foot, and wings emerged,

and fangs.

             I suppose we’d all like to die

             doing something we love. I suppose

             we all love something. I dream

             of prayer beads spilling off the string,

             the chain, the tender coil of vein.

I got a shovel from the garage—

was a spade the first tool? A knife?

Cutting into the earth, rearranging

time to bring things back, up,

or put things down. Who invented

the cut flower? Maybe you can see

the place I don’t want to go,

trying to cut around it, or veer off the trail,

hand you a bouquet before the apology.

             Jaime stood at the podium and began

             her one poem allowed at the open mic.

             Halfway through, she stopped, stepped back.

I nudged the bat three times, but it did not fly.

It must be hurt, right? I put it out

of its misery and into mine. Flat side

of the spade against the grey porch.

Then I scooped it, not swooped it,

into a black plastic bag.

What was it doing on my porch

folded in like that? Hurt, I say, hurt.

             I sat and waited for her to resume,

             but she did not, her brain

             exploding before the expectant crowd

             of waiting to applaud politely

             then rise and take their turn

             in the prescribed order.

             A musician was also scheduled.

If you pick up a rock, it can turn

into many things. What came first,

the poem or the prayer?

I needed to fill that large black plastic bag

with other discarded items.

             I never learned how

             to pronounce her last name

             though she sat in my class and said

             mine. I pound out a rhythm with my fist

and try to sway with the tilt of light.

             We were in the woods, far from any-

             one besides poets, so she was a goner.

             The helicopter took her down to Detroit

             to die with a plastic tube in her head.

             Consciousness and its many prefixes

             and states of—I’d talked about the sub–

             and imagined the road there, then many roads.

One dead bat in a black sack

with dead weeds and fall trimmings.

Oh, I said. Lord, how stupid can I be?

As stupid as I want to, I imagine

he’d reply if I let him out

of that sack. How can they do it,

those who zip up body sacks

one by one? One by one, I imagine,

they’d say. Bigger than a bread-box.

             When we wrote blues poems,

             she took Screaming Mimi

             as her blues name. I needed

             to say that. We ran out of time.

             We did not discuss that poem.

             She spoke about the war

             in someone else’s young poem,

             time’s helicopter hovering.

Launch_______. Most

of us might say missiles.

Oh man, I said. Conscious

of everything rewound,

sped up. I see myself slipping

the spade under the bat

and tossing it toward the sky,

watching the magic flight

like the subconscious mind

swooping, diving.

             Her daughter said her mother died

             doing something she loved.

             She finished reading that poem

             at the funeral, though no one

             could remember where she’d

stopped.

Motivational Speaker Escape Room

Blowing himself up like a puffer fish
he explains how I too could transform my life.

He has the key to unlock the path to the ladder
to the top tier, following me around the room

with his exploding microphone while I search
for clues to get my inner self the hell out of there.

I found the spit shield and ear plugs.
He found the volume control on the self-amplifier.

The doorway’s blocked with bricks of books
and tapes, tattooed with his enormous photo.

I’m larger than life, he says. I’m as large
as I want to be, I say, scrunching down

into a shape approximating a keyhole,
but he quickly stuffs it

with his crackling motivational gum.
Someone’s waiting outside to open

the door to come in and mop up my remains.
This is usually the point at which I’d be awoken

from my nightmare, but this guy is jamming
his pointer finger into my eardrum to make his point.

I open my wallet and hand him all my money—
can I exit through the gift shop? I ask.

This is the gift shop, he says.

JIM (RAY) DANIELS is the author of seventeen books of poems. His latest book of fiction, The Perp Walk, was published by Michigan State University Press this year, along with his coedited anthology, RESPECT: The Poetry of Detroit Music. During his long career, he has warmed up for Lucinda Williams at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, read on Prairie Home Companion, had his poem “Factory Love” displayed on a racecar, and sent poetry to the moon with the Moon Arts Project. Awards include the Tillie Olsen Prize, the Brittingham Prize, the Milton Kessler Poetry Prize, two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and many others.

Jim Daniels

this is the story of how I killed the bat

Motivational Speaker Escape Room

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