As far as you can see are seabirds

that won't stop dying, won't stop

making a froth-slicked slag heap

of this beach, this riot of wings

restless as rats. You can't help

but watch them peck and scrabble

across sand and rock, every species

beyond the reach of wave

after wave of shushing in—and that anemic C

of moon that looks to be floating

just above their flocked panic.

Bloom is no name for this, these splashes

of red feathers, of loons lying

in white collars like clergy

fresh from a stabbing. They won't stop

crying, shrill infants left to the elements,

cry after rising cry

until you pray for joystick and screen,

a chance to plug in and propel

your radiant self beyond this level.

Instead of phytoplankton, gigabytes

and a fair fight in which you could bring it,

breeze over waves and click

each ruby icon of each loon eye and win.