turned up like an artifact
of our early days,
the time one zipped
into your kitchenless hovel

& you hopped from leg to leg
your coat a white flag
as it flapped along the ceiling.

Now there’s a boy —
& he’s got a whole trove
of darkness & dreads-to-be.

Thus you quash the panic
that bids you run! that warns rabies!
that wonders if it’s big enough
to carry off the cat —

when it finds a perch
above the back door, you show
our boy how it hangs

upside down, explain
that the bat, like any of us,
just wants a warm bed.

You cup it
in gloved hands, as close
as you’ve ever been to the bare nose
of a big brown bat, while he
props open the door,

& together you countdown
then release
the wriggling rocket.