At first there is nothing. But then, later, a body, a place, distinct spatial relations. The body is huddled and curled and slept in the folding of itself upside down, an upside-down world around it, and it is dark and warm here amid the mewls of the young and soft ticking motions of bodies around, all the bodies around, this small crevice from which I hang, fold, still, still as the rock and the cave, as within the belly is no longer full of movements ended, things caught, no longer full of catching of chasing of eating, the black shadow of anticipation to fall on the moving tastes of crunches, keeping nose from the cold, tucking it under the arch of leathery wings which belong, long fingers which belong, warm but empty belly which belongs, lets long fingers curl hard and naturally and instinctively, thoughts of hunting, yes, amid the black here, the black and calm of waiting, seeing the small twongs of sound bounce around and give the world, yes, it is safe, safe, cousins, brothers, sisters, yes, the other black bodies as soft as underbellies of night, rubbing, an expanse of skin, a thousand skins, which all belong, all love and strife, the true world is here in the cousins which belong, the brothers which belong, the sisters which belong, the world inside which belongs, while the world outside is a great loft of flyings and huntings and smellings and here is the home of the all, the home, the cave, and now the great belonging is moving, is rising, rising now, touchings of skeins of leather yes, now it is time to hunt to find the night to be amid the tall and the open and find find find the little wells little treasures of food food food, cousins around yes the smell of flying the quick beats of hearts, twongs, hear all movement, here, spilling out into the outside all of the all the escape of the cave the mouth the dark the home, emerge into the open, all of us, to spread to cry to mark to move to hunt to feed, yes, yes, to be bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat.

SUNDAY

Kierk wakes up with the expectation that he is seventeen again. That he has to get to high school, which means driving in the glare of morning across the salt marshes, then leaving surreptitiously during lunch to get high in his car, to come back and take a calculus exam disheveled, to have a free period in the library and spend it with his feet up, balancing his chair on its back legs, reading Heinlein, to run with his track team-mates that evening along roads as basic to him as blood, an entire day of seventeen-year-old life waiting as thick as water, as edible as bread. Everything had been potential.