Vincent Thomas Bridge, San Pedro Harbor, CA
The green bridge is a weighty suspension
of disbelief,
its angle of ascent firing my muscles,
a forced march in country
shadowing my climb up its short suspenders.
Hands heavy on the rotund rail,
its pitted touch flashes a pier railing,
my father demonstrating baiting a hook,
the wriggling body dangling over the side.
Night pulls up its blanket
veiling the wind-stropped containers
stacked like toy blocks below
while nestled in the standing army of alien cranes
a decommissioned battleship sleeps.
The watery bay beckons.
Below a siren wails to climb the rail.
Roger Camp lives in Seal Beach, CA where he tends his orchids, walks the pier, plays blues piano and spends afternoons with his pal, Harry, over drinks at Saint & 2nd. When he’s not at home, he’s traveling in the Old World. His work has appeared in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, North American Review, Gulf Coast, Southern Poetry Review and Nimrod.
