50. The Bat

By day the bat is cousin to the mouse.

He likes the attic of an ageing house.

His fingers make a hat about his head.

His pulse-beat is so slow we think him dead.

He loops in crazy figures half the night

Among the trees that face the corner light.

But when he brushes up against a screen,

We are afraid of what our eyes have seen:

For something is amiss and out of place

When mice with wings can wear a human face.

                                 Theodore Roethke