The rhumb line crawl up
the Sacramento River started
in the Tonkin Gulf where we
delivered to aircraft carriers
a hull full of 2,000 pound bombs
then we sailed without ballast east
seven thousand miles fueled
by memory and regret
to be awakened again by the fog
horn blasts and rip tides
off Seal Beach, San Francisco.
Then triangulation:
I took navigation fixes
on the Golden gate, Coit Tower
and the smoke stack on Alcatraz
every thirty seconds to mark
underneath the radar and the pilot's
grainy words to the captain
our ship's progress
that was kind of a one-screw
one-rudder stutter step
leaving a sinuous wake that
stayed within one compass
point until we docked upstream
in Port Chicago.
Forty years later I can hear myself
say "mark" as I look at the familiar
navigation points from Fisherman's Wharf
where the sea lions are perfecting
their bark for the tourists to come
and the bay waters slap against the piers.
I notice on the walking path
a chalk drawing of a body as
you might find at a crime scene.
I was trying to reconcile
murder with such tranquility
until I saw another chalk body
then another and another
with dates and names like
Cortez, Mendoza and Perez
as if they had fallen
in quick succession
as they surely did in Iraq
visible in the early morning
mist to the runners and power
walkers who stop their hearts
just long enough to remember underfoot
even with this fading rage against the war
that Hispanics also bleed.