New bridge over East Bay,
waters free of brine, the sea
retreated from triumph of summer
when she rode over the old crossing
built a year before our fathers fought
on Pacific islands, parched graveyards
rising from depths of an ocean. Survivors
returned, cast lines from the familiar span,
certainty shrunken to flow of tides upon pilings
rounded as concrete bunkers hulked in their dreams.
Stubborn pillars stand alone now in muck of the bottom,
the bridge bed raised and shattered on the storm’s surge,
broken pieces tumbled in currents over an unseen surface
to shores recalled by old men as we nod in ignorant sympathy.

We crossed first at morning among refugees allowed brief return,
coming to your home over the new beach lying on the road.
We sought last small things, the most important lashed
on the truck under cottonseed tarps when the shrimpers
warned of a hurricane and we abandoned the place
to dunes soon conscripted by the Gulf, pushed
through every room, sea grass already growing
where the windward wall fell before the weight.
You cried at midday when we crossed again,
and I listened to keening of cables in wind
echo shrieks heard by old artillerymen
when they dream
steel screams.

~Ron