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.