The Gulls: A Ghazal

The Gulls: A Ghazal

The gulls scream as they ride the gusts from the sea.
Lying side by side on the sand, you reach out to touch me.

The gulls swoop and scream; I wonder if they want sex.
Mothers lead their cherub-children into the brown sea.

You wave your sandy hands over my chest and thighs.
But I scold and swat you away. Don't you see

that I want to dream on the dunes, my belly full?
But a radio squawks next to us, drowning out the sea.

A mother with a slender shape washes down her cherub
on the trunk of the car, dribbles water from the sea.

In the late sun, the girl cries like the gulls in the tidal pools.
But I scorch, and sleep, rather than touch one foot in that brackish sea.