Farewell, Santiago


The waves chortle in ripples; his boat
corks from side to side, slapping the surface
with a bone-bow and starving fingertips:
both have lost their names.  But he
gurgle-speaks to the gull and whispers
ancient lore along the foam-crackled crest.
He’s hooded and hunched,
an old scalawag that never found home
anywhere that didn’t drift like him.
Sand doesn’t speak his language anymore.

But the interwoven arms of corals
can tell stories by the North Star,
times when he was agile and supple;
knee-deep in seaweed and the salt-burbled edge.
The night he slit his palm with a pocket knife
and offered life bounty to the tides
in brotherhood; one drop in,
many drops out over the years

and frayed nets, unfurled ropes.
The redemption of hope glistened in cobalt scales
and weighed at market like poison vials,
polluted inky clouds tarnishing
every coin—hardly worth the bloodletting.
Not anymore.
Dusk fans out orchid and orange blaze;
he yawns a welcome to the mako at last.