MELODY S. GEE

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.