Will Snelling
Two gulls are giving each other an earful
cheek by jowl inside the wind-slapped cliff-face.
Below them, we traipse across the shore
experiencing nature’s glory in our flapping coats
as their argument scatters on the wind,
coarse as grit between the teeth.
We’re almost embarrassed to be listening in
while they go at each other, presumably at odds
over who last disposed of the fish bones,
or gave their cramped apartment a spruce.
We take the warm car back to our natural habitat
of supermarket aisles and living rooms,
but imagine them slowly tiring of the sound
of themselves, and settling into their routine
of watching the seascape flick between
its handful of channels: the one with bits of cloud
being torn by the salted breeze, or the one
where the maddening tide retraces its steps
before the evening reaches for the off-switch
and all that’s left to see is a fuzz of stars,
a layer of dust across the sky’s black glass.
Will Snelling is a poet and musician from Hastings. His poems have appeared in Acumen, New Critique, Ink Sweat and Tears, and elsewhere.
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