An old woman on the docks gave
her scraps of soup-kitchen bread to the gulls.
The elders sank their beaks to the ground before her
while a small fledgling hopped in her cart,
nested in the plastic bags.

They withdrew from the sounds of frothing waves,
warmed each other in the shadows of city streets.
The bird shed his down, glossed his flightless wings with
a tawny coat. His eyes grew bleary;
he huddled on the woman’s knees.

She died, at home on the concrete,
wrapped in the pilling fabrics she had gathered.
The gull dragged his heavy, useless wings
over her corpse, feathering her limbs, grateful.

The plastic bags surged into the wind,
scattering frantically, weaving through airshafts and alleys.
The gull stumbled after them, his wings scraping back to the docks,
searching for sympathy in the stiff planks and pulsing waves.

He found weak timbers and cold water.
“We have nothing for you,” they said.
“You left your flight and your home here,
years ago.”