Gulls

If it weren’t for that

horrible screech, I might

begin to envy gulls:

their tiny brains, clear eyes,

those feathers of ash, and those

hollow bones; that flesh

so rich in fat it floats

effortlessly in water,

air, above fires; the way

they twist and turn around

the local siroccos rising

flames create for them.

If only they’d shut up.

I really do admire

their special spiral flight

pattern (patterned after

Yeats’s infamous

gyres, I suppose)

sustained by next to nothing—

the minimum of toil—

pure buoyancy—like music—

the sweetest morsel of

humanity; nourishment

picked up on the sly from some

colossal black barge

passing out to sea,

full of rotting garbage.