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Release the bats.
By Roshni Samlal

With huge impatience, inwardly swelt,
my fanged hearts release the bats.
To Spelunk through your tinted cheeks at dawn,
devour all the dots
and exit via a door marked "exit"
Is the bats only desire
Such morbid strain, what ancient pain,
I mused upon my mattress. Yet beneath this mattress,
a deeper mattress opens, and threatens to
swallow me wide. Meanwhile,
my fingernails grew longer and longer.
After several days, I left the mattress.
Countryside terrorized by bats,
said the morning paper. Inspecting my fingernails
I discovered several important artifacts,
which I left on the window sill (for the bats). I washed my hands in
Stridex anti-bacterial foaming wash and returned unto
the mattress.
Through a chink in the mattress, you could see the cellar,
where, in darkness, bats blended into other bats. Nevertheless,
I named these bats: Mortimer, Hercules, Barthalmew, Captain Jack, etc.
Mysterious voices emerged from the cavalcade,
and I followed them by mattress.
This endeavor proved uneventful.
Drained of effort, life become a house made from smoke.
Dots and stripes navigated the fringes.
Beyond the fringes, bats were floating in the pond,
their cigarettes pointing at the moon.
You were there in a fur coat
made from smoke, searching for clues.
How terribly I miss you, and look out the window
hoping to see you, and think of things to say to you,
and picture myself saying them.
The bats were only a decoy, I would say,
you shouldn’t take them so seriously.
But decoys are deployed for a reason, you would say,

and insist upon further study.