Love, Explained by Flying Foxes

A surge of winged bodies

filling the indigo sky at dusk,

sudden and without warning,

charging the air—


as if love could come like that,

not tender, but wild,

misunderstood, 

and gone too fast

to say what it meant.


Or perhaps memory is a poor archivist,

saving what it finds beautiful, 

or strange,

or what it cannot explain,

rather than what I want to recall—

the warmth of a hand, a voice 

that softened when saying my name.

Still, I hold the bats.

I let them circle.

Their heavy wings whisper things

my father never did.

---

Sam Aureli, originally from Italy and now based in Boston, is a design and construction professional working in real estate development. When he’s not immersed in concrete and steel, he writes poetry rooted in the elemental textures of the world. He came to poetry later in life as a refuge from the noise, a way to pause and listen more closely to what the world quietly offers. His poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in The Atlanta Review, Humana Obscura, Underscore Magazine, Prosetrics The Magazine, Stanchion Magazine, and Crow & Cross Keys, among other literary journals.