Witnesses

A flock of gulls erupts from the sand, pushed into flight

           by a crab army

surfacing across the dune, boiling the shore

           with their urgency

for open water. The gulls hover, then rain hard, parting crab

flesh from armor. We watch the opening of bodies, the fast

           filling of bodies,

outnumbered by birds, by hunger. We watch,

           because we are able,

until the crabs are licked clean and waves take the stain

of their roe. Trenches ribboned

in the sand are smoothed under the tide’s palm.

           Nothing remains but

the sated and their witnesses, our silence torn from the sand

           like useless roe.

The air settles, and a new year comes for us in sight of this

silvery flock now resting on one foot.