Gulls by Jenika Moen

Gulls swing over the whitecaps  

as if suspended on sticks  

and driven around from above,  

the low, soot sky being the proscenium. 

Just birds. They’ve seen a lot, I think,  

maybe giant ships drowned,  

pummeled by air and water, forced  

to the bottom of the jagged pitch pull of the bay  

and held there. 

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Erosion looms like an algae bloom,  

a poison here at Presque Isle Park,  

where signs ignored for generations  

cry, “caving ground,”  

“caving ground / do not cross.” 

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So, Presque  

breaks and sighs, sloughs into the eater, the ship eater,  

deepest teal on black and red iron cliffs flicking sharp tongues 

at kids who scrabble down the edges where it is climbable,  

their fingers clawing out the clay and rock of the isle, soft sneakers  

shaving it down step by step feeding it to Superior,  

past pendulous shorebirds and autumn leaves,  

a blessing this time of year. The wind has been kind,  

though it doesn’t feel that way now. 

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Pressing  

in a ring encircling the clifftops, I walk  

on the heavy road from which you can see ships  

coming in as small dots and as slow sea dragons,  

and here, nearest to the edge,  

a cross ribboned to a tree. 

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I wish they hadn’t  

let their grief and religion run loose like that  

to play with mine, all ripped, rent. 

What a monstrous thought. 

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I don’t want to think.  

I want to be a picturesque drive.  

I want to be in front of a sunset for someone,  

to give it shapes. I want to erode, erode,  

touch the wind and waves again,  

again, lovingly, so that I still break,  

still fall like sand, a grain at a time,  

fall off. 

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