Death over Water
...over the seagull chasing her around just as in figure skating, “But the eagle is always/above and behind it, parallel, like/the male of a pair of ice dancers/spreading his dark arms above/his partner’s every move, like that.”(l. 8-12). The male is bigger than the female, just as the eagle is bigger and stronger than the seagull. The seagull is described as the female dancer and is explained to being scared of the eagle, running away just as the female dancer seems to run away from the male. The seagull isn’t flying far though, just as if they were trapped in an ice arena, “Why does it never/head for the trees? Why does it remain/in that arena where the enemy has/every advantage of size and speed?”(l. 15-18). Just as in an arena there is an audience and instead of humans, the crow takes their place. Crows are described as an audience to the eagle and the seagull. The reason is because they are just watching the fight between the two. There black feathers make them look like an audience, dark, obscure, and hard to make out the details, “Perhaps it’s ...