The Golden Hinde

On Christmas Day, Kathleen and I

propel a raft with plastic spoons

through the hissing fur of surf,

             stirring as we go

             an Alka-Seltzer sun.

We pass Bolinas-Stinson School,

the fire house, and Smiley's dive;

extinguished geodesic domes

             along the mesa road

             where Cream Saroyan lives.

With a telescope, my sister spies

the erstwhile chemist of Argonne

who left his post to polish glass.

             As penance, he engraves

             a glyph of hydrogen

on the blank face of every cliff

from Monterey to Inverness.

Beside us, cormorants describe

             the chop in grunts, then plunge

             through thirty feet of grease.

I try to hold my breath as long

and cheat or fail. As evening comes

we pass the final spit of land.

             Once more around the Horn

             and then we'll make for home.