Vacation

A bat got caught in my mother’s black

bathing suit as it hung on the line.

The bat was a breast, her fluttering

heart, then a lump in the belly,

beating mound between

the legs, each chirping set

of lips, statue in which

a woman’s genitalia

and mouth are reversed.

I watched from inside as waves

transmitted through fabric,

little mites rode

in the bat’s fur,

parasitic as children.

Then the bat flew through

an armhole and the suit was quiet,

vacant. If a way out existed,

so did a way to touch her again.

“Vacation” first appeared in Bellingham Review, Fall 2003.