Gulls at Santa Monica Beach

after Louise Glück

I’m writing this poem because 
someone called me old last night,

I thought about you, I come 
every five years, you must know me.

one time the sun broke 
all the waves made halos

I chased you with my phone
each of your step makes gold stars

each different than my dream
swallowed in sand seconds after birth,

I didn’t know a single soul on that beach.

Another time I came with my parents, 
and took pictures

of them taking pictures. The sea, the sky,
the beach was a triptych of Gauguin,

each in their stubborn monolithic hues,
the yellow cannot see azure cannot see blue.

they were dehydrated, and don’t speak a word of English.

This time, after my visa appointment, I was late, 
caught between a gray sky and a dim sea

afar, the sliver of horizon lit all
red, a shooting star lay flat

it’s trying to send out a message:
you will leave the time you were born

and grow into a stranger
doing not much richer, nor much worse

always you will look back over the sea 
for home: it has shifted

places—but how you look out, the gull
at the slanting sun

ocean crashing by its firm, webbed feet
not sinking into sand, not an inch deep