https://orionmagazine.org/issue/mayjune-2017/

“Age six, doffing a white jogging cap of my father’s and wandering the beach of North Padre Island, Texas, I felt the seagull dung land on my head with a spectacular splatter, though I didn’t know what it was. I had assumed all birds were winged automata, cartoons that hovered in the air, never eating nor bodily functioning…”