Every morning on her kitchen window-ledge
behind lace curtains, doves coo
keeping a hopeful eye out to see and to be seen by her
and her alone.

That’s what she told me

as she drove her canary-yellow ‘67 Mustang on Ocean Parkway
me in the passenger seat — our first beach date
spinning the radio dial I land

in the middle of Elton John’s Rocket Man, singing along faking
what I didn’t know she laughs and we both soar
under a cloudless blue Saturday sky

not another car nor a bird in sight.

Two seagulls on the wing, too far-off to be easily noticed,
like placid lovers out for the day, casually flew side by side.

They’re coming for me! her voice more anxious than amused.

Squinting into a bright afternoon haze I spot them, distant
and inconspicuous as an afterthought in a painting,
heading for no particular destination.

She was joking… had to be, and so I smiled…waited…watched

both gulls in the boundless sky approaching nearer now
until their feathered bodies in the air above the windshield
like buoys in the sea bobbed excitedly

one flew up and off in a frenzy as the other swooped
with a thud into the car’s grill.
Tires thumped. Steering wheel still in both hands
she continued to drive.

This is not the first time she cried

with ocean wind rushing through open car windows
I understood the overwhelming power of attraction.

She was something special.

TONY POLICANO is an Italian American poet and photographer, born in Brooklyn, raised in Queens and Long Island. Tony’s writing is inspired by music, media, the arts, travel, romance, and family. He is a board member of the Long Island Poetry Collective and managing editor of the anthology Xanadu and editor of “A Taste of Poetry” an anthology of poems and recipes. Tony currently runs a weekly Zoom workshop for poets of all levels.