Monday, August 20, 2018

Dracula Is A Rat With Wings By: Ryan Quinn Flanagan


A bat flies through the open
back screen door and a collective
of screams goes up.

Some of them from men.
With sports jerseys with other men’s
names on their back.

I tell them it is a flying rat with sonar,
quite impressive actually.

Then I ask if they have a fishing net
and a blanket.

Straight catch and release.

The bat doesn’t want to be here
any more than I do.

But I am still here.
Wondering if the bat feels
bad for me after he
is gone.

While some broken home
from Letitia Heights accosts me
back from the bathroom
by the stairs

trying to get with me
even though she has a boyfriend
I lived down the street from
when we were four years
old.

Sharing blue freezies
that stained our lips
each summer.

But this one wants to make a baby.
She isn’t getting any younger.

She wants me to be the father.
When I shoot her down,
it is hard not to be incredulous.

Battleships are made of
solid steel.

I know I am a little less.


About Ryan Quinn Flanagan:

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Horror Sleaze Trash, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

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