The Circling of Gulls
You promise we will picnic at the cove
when gulls circle back to fish and scavenge,
say you will pack blankets and a wicker basket:
mangoes and brie, merlot nestled
in a burgundy napkin.
We’ll eat the mangoes,
let their juices sketch rivers over the mounds
of our navels. You’ll spill wine from your mouth
into mine, pat me dry with soft linen.
I will answer with my body.
You will take me beside the blue waters of the cove,
its changing shoreline, slip my blouse
from my shoulders, ease my pants past my knees,
lay me on sea-grass, succulent and shuddery
in the afternoon light.
………………………………………
In the real world, we pack blankets
and a wicker basket: crusty rolls and thin sliced ham.
We leave crumbs everywhere.
You tell me that once you loved a girl
and once you loved a woman
and I am neither.
We never notice
how the sun winks one immense eye, how minutely
light changes. Would a fool expect it to last,
even if it were possible? Errant gulls peck at the crumbs,
carry them away when their hunger overwhelms
this fractured world of sea and sky.
First Published by Louisiana Literature
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