Palo Verde
We leave dinner before dusk
set up mist nets
in the old landing strip,
stagger the angles,
wait for the omnivorous, the sanguivorous.
Headlamps yield clusters of light,
pick up bluegreen spider eyes
peering from black cracks in the dry marsh.
Thick-gloved, gentle, we untangle bats
from slings in the nets,
measure their warm fleshy winghands,
identify their tiny faces,
toss them back in the air to release.
A Study
of Microchiropteran Diversity
and Ecomorphology.
A vampire shrieks in the hands of my professor,
I know, I know you want to eat my soul.
We look at his teeth,
his long thumbs for walking,
his soft rage-filled body.
Desmodontus.
Before dawn I climb the iron tower
that faces mountains and river.
When light hits the water,
only the small things are moving
and grasses, white feathers.
| Katy Diana |
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