Once I was on a desperate ship
For many days . every day I would take my eating knife and make a carving in the wall for each day. I worked hard mopping the decks and cleaning the crew’s corters every day because I knew that when I got back on shore I would see you. I never complained, but kept a steady emotion to disguise my weakness. I held the ach, and let it drift in and out of my heart like the coming and going of the current. Each new moon making it harder and harder to feel it. it was the only thing that could wash the sting of loneliness. I had no friends aboard, but did make a good impression on my captain. He was an honest man. When I told him I counted myself as a real businessman he said he has always counted himself that kind of man as well, even though we both know he will always need to captain a ship. There were a couple women on board and I managed to only get their names and mabe where they were from but there were never any flings. Only flighting thoughts of the love that you and I shared. Most of the days the sun was steadily overhead, other days it was ieghther blistering hot, or snowing. When the snow fell for the first time I watched as it wighed down our ship to almost sinking. I even built a snow man wishing you were there. The falling ice flashed in the sun as if taking a picture of every memory on board. I caught one hoping it held reflections of you, far , far away, mabe picking up your favorite book, or laughing at your favorite joke, perhaps you were with friends, dancing in the snow, or making a snowman that reminded you of me. Perhaps you lay, smiling, with a cup of hot chocolate at your side, asleep on the couch, or mabe inteslely searching for your lost glasses as you often do. Then smiling, you find them on your head, just where you last left them. but, these tiny mirrors only held the reflection of my own face when searched for impressions. My own repulsing, wind stung, skin. The teeth, almost completely melted by salted meats and limes. My eyes, deep in the pits of my skull, sending me messages with their with their dark, oxygen depleted rings, like warning signs from a smoke signal high on the shores. My lips, white and dry, like piles of thin, dry slices of potatoes baked after a warm harvest. When I saw this reflection I hoped that the snowflake would not fly away and tell you what it had beheld.
There is a specific memory I have of visiting a port in Germany. I stepped off the ship and as I did the handkerchief you so lovingly had tied on my wrist slipped and dropped slowly into the water like the falling maple leaves do when the weather starts turning cold. I watched it sink , each needled rose bud drifting into the endless, algae infested water. I saw a flash of rainbow scales and hoped the fish would later regurgitate that beloved handkerchief on your shore. The smell of the rank sea water did not belong with the unattainable beauty of that handkerchief, or the memory of the beloved who belonged to that handkerchief. It reeked of salty death and soggy cigars. I did not deserve to be juxtaposed with the handkerchief any more than the water did; With its smooth white virgin cotton; Never before entangled with dirt or rough. Never pressed against a man’s back, dripping with sweat. It is probably better off in the belly of the fish or the endless passing of the current. It is probably at home in the turning of waves, as it was in your washroom for a time here and there to be rinsed and pressed with rose oil. First swished back and forth by a tender, light hand, in the white, steamy bubbles, then drawn out slowly and hung, dripping as if releasing a quantity of hot guilty tears.
