Standing outside on a warm night, smoking, the speaker listens to seagulls squabbling over chip boxes, ketchup packets and chicken bones in a run-down coastal town. They recall a legend, which they admit they may not fully understand, that seagulls were once angels, and that they became scavengers because people forgot about them. That idea feels fitting to the speaker: in a world of disposable desire, there seems little room for prayer, pilgrimage or incense, or for any hope of rising above the plain facts of the body and death.
The speaker then links the gulls to homeless people, both of them living off our waste and either ignored or quietly despised by "respectable" society. The tone is weary and quietly angry rather than shouting. The imagery is grimy and the gulls sound almost mechanical, which makes the mood bleak. The final line, "Dignity is denied to the forgotten," states the point plainly, with a sense of sorrow and a hint of accusation.