Hallowe'en: Batty

The Bat
by Theodore Roethke

By day the bat is cousin to the mouse.
He likes the attic of an aging house.

His fingers make a hat about his head.
His pulse beat is so low 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 or out of place
When mice with wings can wear a human face.