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Gull Island
The wise advice is this: don’t look up
My heartburn is like the Arctic Ocean —
it numbs my gaze from the gravel beach.
Across the water is a rock covered with birds,
stained like snowfall, a sanctuary of spawn,
shattered eggshells that lip the surf,
settle on the bottom to build more limestone.
This breaking age — where tourists love to circle
the stone, look for gulls, terns, puffins,
petrels and maybe a sea lion waiting
for some final plunge or first failure.
The wise advice is this: don’t look up
amid the flock. It’s not a good luck charm
but a form of infection that plucks you like a feather.
It isn’t easy to stare straight ahead. So much
beckons our craning gaze to ridges beyond
where some climbed high and then turned back.
©️ Trapper Markelz 2022
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