GULL

Driving Route 73
in Knox County,  
I could eat the air
gobble stands of balsam
nibble tidal wrack.
A pickup speeds toward me.
The  seagull, busy with roadkill,
is slow to rise.
He’s smashes into the truck’s grill
and bounces, dead, across my roof.
Each day I see his body, 
white and inert, at roadside.    
So sudden the flight from life
to stillness at the road’s edge.