Paris Gulls

The scent of oceans, a certain coolness of wind over water wanders these city streets where oleander blooms wickedly in the ruby assignation of the heart. An occosional grayed gull, bonded to the Seine, grown fat with pigeons and lazy for the river forgets raw Novembers he owned the coast, forgets the dangerous face of the sea after storms: her width cut arrow straight at the horizon, ragged at the shore, like lace to granite. Standing on the Pont de l'Alma, watching one lone expatriate gull scan the surface of this fabled river that travels seaward to Le Havre, I remember colonies of gulls, how they plotted their exodus across our island to the harbor, or on the pinnacles of the fort, where no invaders except sea birds come, seeking shelter from their free lives as if freedom is too much to bear sometimes, drawing with their terrible focus a telegraphy of sharp cries, wings dipping into the morning harvest of seaweed and shell among the hooves of wild horses, the old bones of sailers.