His awful skin <br />stretched out by some tradesman <br />is like my skin, here between my fingers, <br />a kind of webbing, a kind of frog. <br />Surely when first born my face was this tiny <br />and before I was born surely I could fly. <br />Not well, mind you, only a veil of skin <br />from my arms to my waist. <br />I flew at night, too. Not to be seen <br />for if I were I'd be taken down. <br />In August perhaps as the trees rose to the stars <br />I have flown from leaf to leaf in the thick dark. <br />If you had caught me with your flashlight <br />you would have seen a pink corpse with wings, <br />out, out, from her mother's belly, all furry <br />and hoarse skimming over the houses, the armies. <br />That's why the dogs of your house sniff me. <br />They know I'm something to be caught <br />somewhere in the cemetery hanging upside down <br />like a misshapen udder.<br /><br />Anne Sexton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bat-2/
