The Cup

I would not have you think
the cup is full,
but neither is it empty.
The push and pull
of living as we conceive it
receives the gull,
if floating, as triumphant;
but consigned by need
of hunger to eat trash
at the city dump,
thus, soils the image we've built;

while what's retrieved
from our leavings
becomes the fill
that converts the trash
to firm land:
which serves to tell
the cup once seen as empty
can again be filled
and the gull,
once freed from garbage,
may again gleam white.