Ten gulls stand in the shallows of the surf;
Let water splash their plumage as it breaks.
Christ, just sway there -
Perched on match-stick scaffold legs;
Their heads ducking in unison. Their backs, rigid as Cantilevers.
Until the tide
Forces a waddle, foot by foot.
So they can dip their sides, and preen their underbellies,
Pallid and glowing
Like Protestant churchmen from a constitutional.

A lone fisherman is forced back as
The oyster shell of sand he guards
Is gently swallowed.
Step by step, wave by wave, unhitching all his gear,
He plods ten paces, sets his tackle down
And casts out into the oncoming curls
That ease toward him like
Crowds on Oxford Street;
Past the famished breaker’s reach
And aching sand.

And one old sea-dog dices - in his wellies -
with a spring cold,
from thumping in the shallows a bit deep.
His mutt splashes, yelping beside him;
Biting a sea-worn branch that’s washed ashore,
Indented with his teeth-marks; spattered
with sea froth and saliva.

And I sit perched above them –
a craggy stretch of rock -
vertiginous as an eagle watching his prey.

Four swallows dart beneath me.

copyright,  © 2006 Moby Pomerance