Seagulls

They’re only there in the mornings.

Seagulls, hundreds of them, dotted across the football pitch

Like closed white buds in a morning mist.

I don’t know what they’re doing there, in a grey city centre,

Watched by queues of faces wishing not to go to work.

Don’t they miss the sound of the sea?

Anyway, by evening they’re gone.

It was only early, after all. The fog stirred them from sleep,

Urged them awake and for a while they were still,

Waiting for a breeze to brush them with life, a smell, a hunger

To say- ’come on, pick up those wings, let’s go now;

There’s plenty of time to rest tonight.’