parking lot burial 

she asks me, "what are you doing
to yourself?" i get in the car
& drive & drive until i reach the parking lot.
there are sea gulls
who come here just to die.
they watch television on their backs.
make vlogs about the garbage they find
in the dumpster behind the stop & shop.
i come here too on a night in the winter
looking for somewhere to hide
all my feathers. they keep spilling
from my mouth & i can't ever conceal them.
i thought i could make a person
for her to love. i hear waves even though
there's a highway between here & the beach.
the ocean has always been just
a mania away for me. i remember 
parking my car in jersey once just
to look for jellyfish, i found none
but i did find a funeral the gulls were having.
in my religion, a parking lot is always
a holy space. a shrine to longing.
& waiting. a stolen mouth. elegy for 
the meadows that used to bloom 
& their ghosts 
who still search in the broken glass
for the color blue. i cannot go home.
my gutted place. plastic drawers
full of everything i want to be. 
i always join a gull funeral when i see one.
say a few words, "i'm sure 
he cut the sky like butter."
the birds chatter. i tear a button 
from my jacket to leave as an offering. 
they birds disperse & only i remain.
a little knot in the ground 
where, in the summer, dandelions
punched their way through the asphalt. 
i know she is waiting for me by the window
with a bowl full of all my feathers i left.