Obituary
by Eric Stone
A bat, aged nine, died Thursday
near Carlsbad, New Mexico, survived
by hoards of great great grandchildren
like hang-gliding mice who roost upside down,
flying past hobgoblins of stalagmites
at dark. In lieu of bouquets, his family
seeks creosote to bloom its tang of moths.
He wintered in tropics, summered
where blood-crazed coyotes leapt
through candelilla, bark scorpions
tweezed beetles, and diamondbacks licked
the same desert nights he hunted
while headlights plumed and trucks blasted
down the freeway. A freight train bawled
one long vowel of grief over beer bottles,
the cantina’s neon burning like cayenne.
Relatives request no funeral
or dirges amid dingy pumpjacks,
requiems beside the ocotillos,
elegies preached over prickly pears–
only ants to pluck his body’s bone guitar.
He wakes in your dreams, his wings
clapping under your eyelids, a glove fat
with grasshoppers, complete.
Eric Fisher Stone is a poet, composition instructor, and PhD student at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. His poetry publications include three full length collections: The Providence of Grass, by Chatter House Press, Animal Joy, from WordTech Editions, and Bear Lexicon, from Clare Songbirds Publishing House. His fourth collection, Love: A Zoography is forthcoming from Shanti Arts Publishing. Instagram: @ericthejavelina
