I made a post a while ago, pontificating that poetry is text and should be treated as such, in truth partly for my eyes sake but also on principle. Nothing happened, so I’ll make a mild protest from searching the title and cutting and pasting, takes under a minute. Feel free to reply and explain if you’re wedded to images. Note, you need to use a # code block ( 3 backticks ` on either side of the text block) in markup to preserve to host text format. First Hit…

Threshold Gods by Jenny George

I saw a real bat, crawling on its elbows
across the porch like a goblin.
It was early evening. I want to ask about death.

But first I want to ask about flying.


The swimmers talk quietly, standing waist-deep in the dark lake.
It’s time to come in but they keep talking quietly.
Above them, early bats driving low over the water.
From here the voices are undifferentiated.
The dark is full of purring moths.


Think of it—to navigate by adjustment, by the beauty
of adjustment. All those shifts and echoes.
The bats veer and dive. Their eyes are tiny golden fruits.
They capture the moths in their teeth.


Summer is ending. The orchard is carved with the names of girls.
Wind fingers the leaves softly, like torn clothes.
Remember, desire was the first creature
that flew from the crevice
back when the earth and the sky were pinned together
like two rocks.


Now, I open the screen door and there it is—
a leather change purse
moving across the floorboards.


But in the dream you were large and you opened
the translucent hide of your body
and you folded me
in your long arms. And held me for a while.
As a bat might hold a small, dying bat. As the lake
holds the night upside down in its mouth.


From The Dream of Reason (Copper Canyon Press, 2018).```

transcript (tesseract + manual adjustment (bad)):

I SAW A BAT in a dream and then later that week I saw a real bat, crawling on its elbows
across the porch like a goblin.
It was early evening. I want to ask about death.

But first I want to ask about flying.

The swimmers talk quietly, standing waist-deep in the dark lake.
It’s time to come in but they keep talking quietly.
Above them, early bats driving low over the water.
From here the voices are undifferentiated.
The dark is full of purring moths.

Think of it—to navigate by adjustment, by the beauty of adjustment. All those shifts and echoes.
The bats veer and dive. Their eyes are tiny golden fruits.
They capture the moths in their teeth.

Summer is ending. The orchard is carved with the names of girls.
Wind fingers the leaves softly, like torn clothes.
Remember, desire was the first creature
that flew from the crevice
back when the earth and the sky were pinned together like two rocks.

Now, I open the screen door and there it is— a leather change purse moving across the floorboards.
But in the dream you were large and you opened the translucent hide of your body and you folded me in your long arms.
And held me for a while.
As a bat might hold a small, dying bat.
As the lake holds the night upside down in its mouth.