. . . a bat will flatten itself
impossibly against
your bedroom window
and squeeze through
two panes to enter

even though
the window is closed,
and it will flit everywhere,
frantic, causing bits of chaos.

If you live long enough,
your name will be forgotten
years before you die, but

nagging memories of
mistakes and humiliations
will also go away,
sweet relief,

and, living longer still,
you will see every antique store
become junk store
become glaciated debris field

hoisted 200 feet into the air,
moving an en-dash a year
in the next ice age,

by which time
exceptions to the rules
will have rendered the world
reader-proof, unintelligible,

and this will ease your
wildly delayed but still
inevitable departure,
how finally welcome.

Harrison Fisher has published twelve collections of poems since 1977, most recently Poematics of the Hyperbloody Real. He held an NEA fellowship in poetry in 1978. Fisher has been retired from public service since 2017 and lives in upstate New York.