The Gulls

All along the shallow bay, a crescently shaped

boomerang, stones

cobble with algae ribbons & shells

dot the drying sand, marking edge &

ebb. Detaching their wings

from the white-gray sky & appearing at the falling tide

gulls circle this graveyard of miniature

headstones, small as children's,

inscriptions smoothed to blankness by the sea

just as earthly graves are made anonymous by rain. I tread carefully,

knowing this. Knowing this &

laughing their

metallic laugh, the trilling gulls could not care less.

Nothing is held sacredly in this hierarchy, in this

oceanic

purgatory.

Quahogs are made for eating, not for

reverence, I hear them taunting me, they

squawk at me & gawk at me, my eyes turned downward

toward the tombstones lying plotlessly & jumbled on the

umber sand.

Vicious and vengeful the

white angels circle, crying war while their atomic yellow

x-ray eyes see all. They do the necessary

yeoman's work and leave the theoretical

zealotry to me.