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Oscillations By Ken
Shiovitz Stark August sun bleaches contrast from a San Diego beach, Nearly concealing jellied secrets, scattered over baking
sands, Each sporting suction-cupped tentacles, speckled with
silicates: Fifty tons of fusiform squids silently rotting after a
summer storm. Barely moving amongst the squid, irregularly arrayed masses
of Bending human bodies, bloated from French fries and
bologna, Mounds of rolling reddened skin in skimpy bathing suits, Toss decomposing mollusks into buckets of stinking slime. The stench reaches even to an ancient gray shack upon the
cliff, Where an old man makes kissing sounds with his toothless
mouth, Watches sleek Western Gulls hover above rotund beach
walkers, Thinks saline droplets, excreted from bill glands, are
really tears. Occasionally a gull swoops low between girthy laborers, Grabs a choice looking corpse, and returns to the cliff
ledge, where Gaping downy balls, newly hatched from roll-resistant eggs
with One enormous end, grasp eagerly at the red spot of a
parental bill. Having watched the cyclical nature of cliff-life for many
years, The old man knows the outcome of this season in advance, Like dependency of Snowy Owl upon the Arctic Hare, that Without free access to rotting squid, the gull population
will suffer. He also knows that nature has a knack for unceasing
compensation, That massive orders of fried potatoes supply enough blubber
to rival an Orca, That the gulls are plunging ever closer to pluck at
human-tossed morsels, And that one day, the slop buckets will be overturned. |
