Seagulls - Stephen Jackson

So many birds, and on occasion

out my window a flock of seagulls,

admittedly not my favorite,

second only to pigeons, but luckily

no pigeons come near my window —

I swear they know better. Then, only

yesterday, several seagulls circling

more graceful than I’d ever seen them

as if I’d never seen a seagull and

even more so, each one illuminated

from below, as if soaring over some

invisible light. Beautiful, I thought

peaceful, pure and white, it was

the antithesis of what I normally think

of these lowly filthy birds — then,

I heard that vicious, frightful cry and

I remembered what they were.

Bio:

Stephen Jackson [he/him] lives in the Pacific Northwest. His work has appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, Dreams Walking, Ghost City Review, Impossible Archetype, The Inflectionist Review, Iō Literary Journal, Mineral, Quince, and S/WORD, as well as on the International Human Rights Art Festival Publishes platform. @fortyoddcrows