On Mount Tam

Jem Burch

The boys are throwing trash
at the gulls. It’s too warm for hoarfrost
in the grass, the blue-white crispness
underfoot. The wild oranges kneel,
rotting, tart remains of summer.
Off the bluff, the upturned trash cans spill
their stomachs for the gulls to pick
clean. If there was a nest, they must have left it,
no longer at ease. Strange, their flight,
how the wind collects them
out over the bay.

I ran away here, once,
in a dream. Some old trailhead
off the fire road. The thrash of ferns
in the dark. Morning, I expected fog,
but woke to sunlight, no water anywhere,
the way filled with stones. I can picture it
already — the land disemboweling,
the gulls in effigy. Fires, again —
that red sky. In the dream, the boys
are laughing, which is their right.
The sun on display above them.
The sea marching til the end.

Jem Burch is a junior at Yale University majoring in Linguistics.

ABOUT THE ART | Mountains by Alina Susani, 2023. Alina Susani is a student at Yale University.