Jonathan's Last Meal Poem by Roger Gerald Hicks

For most gulls, it's not flying that matters,
It's eating...Après Richard Bach

A Prius driver
avoids running
the bundle over, but

it's not road-kill,
grayish feathers,
ocean breezes
slightly ruffle.

After gulping
a flipped
cigarette butt,
crazy with pain,
it dies in flight-

heart thumping
wildly -eyes
going from limpid
to opaque

as it falls -
slamming
to earth
by gravity.

The next car,
an RV,
flattens it.