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The Gulls Maw
A raw red crater of hunger;
the clacking tongue a buckram spear
shaken at all comers.
The gulls mouth is the gull,
the gullet is the gull
the torso, the snowy pale blue plumage,
that dark under-feathering
all the body of the bird
a perfect bow
for the arrowing beak
and its raucous bugle.
A neck stretched for greed;
above that gorge, hard-set and avaricious,
glint eyes long allied to savage seas.
The bird has the primal scream
of a scavenger,
the gall of the harassing hunter
- and yet is admirable,
sleekly beautiful, often graceful,
until,
rigid jaws agape
we regard its wide-open craw,
wince
as those shears clamp down
on some still wriggling shred.
Copyright ©
Eric Ashford
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