Melinda Thomsen
Carl Schurz Park by the East River
The wingspan of the gull
circling the park and river
must measure six feet.
I expect it will land, but it turns
and flies farther north. Meanwhile,
a sparrow hops under the railing
and pauses with a glance
at the water before jumping
into air with a chirp
and a multitude of strokes
to reach a tree near the promenade.
No wonder I never see sparrows
flying over the East River
or kayaks paddling down it,
for it demands serious strength.
One flap will take a gull
a quarter mile. For the less
well endowed, it takes so much
to move ten yards. The seagull
lifts up and down on air currents
forty stories high. Below it,
a little girl in a stroller trails soap
bubbles with a swoop of her hand.
They float upward as she releases
another flock of filmy globes
reflecting a rainbow-edged world,
which we dare not touch.
Melinda Thomsen is the author of Naming Rights (Finishing Line Press, ) and Field Rations (Finishing Line Press, ). Her poems have appeared in Stone Coast Review, Tar River Poetry, The Comstock Review, and North Carolina Literary Review, among other journals. She is an advisory editor for Tar River Poetry and teaches composition at Pitt Community College in North Carolina.
SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value the What Rough Beast series, please consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.