One day in the hot sun, under a mackerel sky <br />on a bench in a parking lot, waiting <br />for a bus to Kingston Station, wielding <br />fans, we found ourselves approached <br />by what? a lost-looking seagull- <br />bow tie-less, but in charcoal <br />tails and a light gray vest, <br />waddling formally our way. <br />'Now what, ' I wondered, pulling in my feet, <br />'could it possibly want with us? <br />Spare change? ' So far from the sea <br />did we look like sardines? I watched as <br />its webs drily toed <br />the sun-softened tarmac; as it padded closer <br />on stalks half-lit like hollyhock stems <br />I saw in a painting once. <br />There was much to admire <br />in the feathery plush of its breast, <br />whitecap-white but whiter when the breeze blew it back; <br />I clucked at the way its level head swiveled <br />smoothly, side to side, like a rudder; <br />chuckled at the way its scimitar beak, <br />yellowed and notched, swerved <br />this way and that, like a tiller;<br /><br />Morgan Michaels<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-seagull-6/
