The Seagull’s Ninetieth, Ninety-Fifth and Ninety-Sixth Seguidilla – poetry by Jake Sheff

 
The Seagull’s Ninetieth Seguidilla
 
That seagull’s fire won’t ascend.
It’s wrapped in paper. 
It ignites designs within
A bird’s skyscraper.
Mother of hoopoes
And father of kiwis; our
Wings make sky-tipis. 

##
 
The Seagull’s Ninety-Fifth Seguidilla
 
Gone to rack and ruin, I 
Cock-a-doodle-doo.
The ancient sound of new growth 
Reaching reaches through. 
It stretches, stretches 
Infinitely from the place
Where history etches. 

##
 
The Seagull’s Ninety-Sixth Seguidilla
 
Silvery sorority 
Above, very still;
Like each falling snowflake, you
Ring a little bell.
The winter sky’s blank
Page is marked by gulls made of
Invisible ink.

Jake Sheff is a pediatrician and veteran of the US Air Force. He’s married with a daughter and crazy bulldog. Poems and short stories of Jake’s have been published widely. A full-length collection of formal poetry, A Kiss to Betray the Universe, is available from White Violet Press. He also has two chapbooks: Looting Versailles (Alabaster Leaves Publishing) and The Rites of Tires (SurVision).