Gulled Copyright © 2009 Fraser Harrison

Captain on my bridge, I pace
our double-glazed picture window,
steering the house through a tempest
that makes the sun-deck heave,
sandblasts the promenade,
pulls out the sea by its roots.

A herring gull,
indolent as an odalisque upon an ottoman,
lolls aboard the gale’s bucking
bronco back, her flighty legs flesh pink,
a dab of orange on her bony lip.

She drops a snowy shoulder, swoops
downwind, surfs the gusts,
wheels, beats back to my watch
and hovers again, idle as a china duck
upon a papered wall.

Bring me my crossbow that I may slay
this white crow, this flying rat,
this dunghill ballerina, trash-virgin
of the tide line. What right has she
to scoff shit and float like a snowflake?
What right not to be mired, with us,
tights torn, lipstick smeared?