Seagull

A thief of the wind, hanging still in the skies,

Careening through currents on arched sliver wings,

Who punctuates pounding of surf with her cries,

And mingles the whistling breeze as she sings.

A pirate, she plunders all refuse the shore,

Discards from the sea on its stone silted face.

Her half spoiled sustenance craved evermore,

She stalks the unwanted, wet, perishing waste.

And yet, she is gentle and leaves not a trace,

Save fleet ghostly fork marks along water's edge.

Her rough landing flap shifts no grain from its place.

Her pleading screech sweet, though it begs to be fed.

She takes only that which the world has released,

And seated on wave crests of flotsam and brine,

She steals even sorrow cast off on the beach-

Shells, half-empty, lifted and lost to the tide.