Jackets in June—it’s chilly this morning.
Three gulls and two crows discuss ownership
of a morsel on the rocks until one gull flies
off trailing the squabble of fish innards.
A northeast breeze sidles into me. Blue Hill
is blanked by the gray horizon. The summer
folk are still asleep or eating scones from
the Scone Goddess. I climb wooden steps
into an empty yard overgrown by Japanese
knotweed, turn, then skim out above the beach
following the gull dangling fishy entrails.
Two more gulls join me. We bank and land
on the float by the condominiums, then tug
against each other to tear apart the fleshy
strip of mackerel. While we enjoy the slithery
snack, one of the crows swoops low over
us yawping a string of curses. Turtle Head
pokes through the mist. They ask if I’d
like to follow the lobster boat pulling traps
off Bayside and I say, Let’s go for it.
Thomas R. Moore’s fifth book of poems, Stones, was published in 2021. His poem “How We Built Our House” won a 2018 Pushcart Prize, and his work has been broadcast on Writer’s Almanac and American Life in Poetry. Visit his website at https://tmoore419.wixsite.com/poet.
