✨ Gull Island

Dec 25, 2024

In summer the diurnal
laughing gull seeks palms
with crumbs along the beach
his black hooded head
punctuated by a sharp red beak

that picked shells from the nest
after an egg hatched
in case a shard of shell
settled upon another
prevents hatching of the next

since even a sliver the size
of your thumbnail untrimmed
its weight less than a penny
is too heavy for the pipping
of a chick’s egg tooth

under the egg’s roof
The parent beak plucks
extracts a foreign grief
so chicks can roughly lift
enough to live

—Alan Felsenthal