Samantha Sharp: MEMORY OF A SEAGULL • Cleaver Magazine

Poetry by Samantha Sharp
MEMORY OF A SEAGULL

powdery dawn: an excavator drags itself across clast and slag
shards of cockleshell on rollers: ghosts splayed under metal

plywood sidewalk: footprints erase one another
whirr in my soles: sparks on my cheek:: numb echo

momentum: in the first instance I float by
rubble: one seagull seated beside a mound of dirt
plastic fence: backwards observatory:: my cage

my bare hand extended: the gull pretends not to notice
unblinking profile: toes webbed to feathers and dust

I wait:
flickers of seabirds in net: wire::
wings::: storm drains::: tide:::
jetty::: brushfires::: flightless sky

olive zip-up: a white-haired woman appears to my left
hoary, tangential plumes: edges kicked up like waves

lime-encrusted shovels half-buried: does that seagull seem sick?
wrinkles envelop her jaw: history in transit

: she always sits there. for weeks, in that spot.
  a seagull chick, crushed by a machine. I watched.
  baby bird: her child, thrown to the rocks.
  she always sits there, for weeks: I watched.

three: a moment:: a knot

tongue like a single blade of grass: the seagull creaks open her bill
a wailing scrapes the sides of apartments: trickles through the gutters

heels on plywood: pedestrians again propelled away
dirt and shovels: sparks:: shards::: wrinkles:::: gulls::::: footprints:::::: tongues

gasoline draught: morning in the city
an excavator drags itself:
and groans

Samantha Sharp is a neurodivergent writer and PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at SUNY Binghamton. She serves as Poetry Editor for Midway Journal and enjoys collecting ex-library books. She is a native Floridian, but currently lives in upstate New York. Find more of her poetry in Wild Roof Journal, Dipity Lit Mag, and Up the Staircase Quarterly.