Ice Bats

// Jenna Ogilvie

On ice bats: “I made up ice bats, there is no such thing.”
—Anne Carson via the New York Times, 3/14/13

The fact that you cannot travel to Alaska
on an ocean liner, locked behind lead-
lined doors and crushing through
sleepless nights like through the ice
forming around the ship’s prow
to see them, teeth hanging
from the entrance of a cave
doesn’t make them any less real.
There would be a swirl of wind
as they took off, different
than how the icebergs bend the weather
around themselves, mammoth
and sinking. During the Arctic
winter, the sun doesn’t set
for days. During the ice bat
migration, people believe
that it might.