The Last Sailor
has the soul of a sea horse.
He lived all his life
on the ocean;
and has wide expressive
eyes of a sea wolf;
and a cancer
that fills his lungs of salt water.
Mr. O. looks at me
With pensive black eyes
And asks:
“How long do I have?”
I say:
“I do not know – it depends.”
However, he is a man of the sea
and knows how to read
the dark clouds in my words.
He knows tempests are coming.
He can feel the sea serpent
eating at the center of his body.
The pain is always the same place
on his liver – a cancerous liver,
congested like a sea sponge.
He wonders about death,
like an old sailor wandering toward
the final port.
He questions it with the
way of a lone sailor
that sails into the last of the rough seas.
Felix Aguilar © | Long Beach, California
