“What’s the matter […] Didn’t you care
about the gulls or were they too ugly?”
– from “Biological Control Task” by Taneum Bambrick
this afternoon, I read about dead seagulls.
bus up north, in my hand the coffee
going cold. in the lake bed out the window, stump scars
from the logging years. sometimes sadness
is the easiest thing in the world to share. last night
when you jumped, the obvious thing was to follow, our rippled
reflections leaking pond scum over the tips of our ears
until night and lake were the same shape. it’s just human
nature; in darkness like this
we lean into each other, fifteen bodies
on the road to the border, my hand reaching blindly
through still water towards yours.
mourning is easy. I’m mourning my coffee;
you’re mourning the trees.
since the year 1500, over
one hundred and fifty avian species
have gone extinct. which is not
the point, but when I tell you that something is gone
is it enough to acknowledge the loss and keep on
living? sink your fishhook into that
flesh, indelible thing wriggling to get away from the surface.
tragedy is so often met with silence. sometimes
when you call, I pretend I’m asleep—we close our eyes
when we don’t want to be blamed for what we’re not doing. it all
leads back to the birds. I never loved seagulls—I loved
you, I love you, that poem, that halfempty bus, fifteen bodies breathing
around me. I can’t still pretend to be sleeping.
if we’re to get through this, I should be ready to jump,
dive headfirst like cormorant in search
of a heartbeat. beaver, make something
of all these fallen trees.
but God, once I would not have wanted to tell you
about the birds – see, even this is acceptance. under
water, I’m still searching for your hand. tell me again
what was the thing with feathers, what perches on the heart, if not
the soul? tell me again what the seagulls
meant. is there a way to say the world
is ending that does not mean I
am letting it?