mickey hits Pacific waters

Camp Pendleton

The sound of the waves, the sea, the sand pocked
With the prints of many boots, rolled into lines of tire tracks,
The stars silken in the night sky
The lone lookout plane high up over the deep sea
The white faint roll of crashing waves way out, tide out
The snack bar open on Saturdays, till seventeen hundred
The blast of light spilling over the sea’s beach
Bird footprints
The breeze, the cool, the ache of legs long traveled and stiff
The memory of boys in the brig, sleeping, alone
The moan of night’s trumpet playing Taps for the dead and lost day.