At dawn, when the ship seemed steady below me, its flamed helm pointing us west, I would take my rare strolls between Cancer and Capricorn, starboard, to watch the peril of my successors set adrift, the way fog might drift. I knew the route of the new Columbus was not through those straights, but the row of sails, wind-swollen, were urging us all on.
I can’t trust the sea. (With its foam and convulsive gasps, its hospitality for all creatures save us, breathing heavily on this wooden tub.) I’m not much of a sailor.
One morning, I thought I saw the archipelago, lacy shores of those islands we were all longing for. I raised the alarm. I wanted to be the messenger.
In exchange for a moment of rest, beneath my bare feet the sand catches fire. In the balance of the posthumous flora, we are refused, forbidden from alighting.
I floated away from that silken shore of the first parting from myself.
We’ve no choice but to continue our journey, though I know I have nothing to offer. I am simply a man with a boat.
