I was always told
to follow my dreams
I am lucky I did not for if I had 

I’d be walking around
carrying an unconscious seagull
into parties I’d not been invited to

A seagull who always
revives as I come through the door
into a room of beautiful people

and raises her head
to look me in the eye
(her head that is now

the head of a woman
with features from a classical 
statue of Greek or Roman origin)

She says something
recognizably human
in a language I don’t know

but loud and clear as a 
buoy’s bell as if she was
in my bedroom in the dark

and as the lovely party people
(none of them as lovely as the bird)
turn to drive me out the way I came

I wake and stare at the far corner
hoping and fearing the bird woman
will be there — but to this day

she has not been 
I then spend a few minutes 
trying to translate for myself

what words she gave me
before falling back to sleep
to seek her

but I never find her
until the next time she awakens
in my arms

and who could live
like this on the day to day
without falling to ruin

upon some bouldered shore
while stretching his hands toward gulls
who will not be caught