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Stippled on toes.

04.25.24 – Clinps

Wind catches the sails pulls the weight far past the swells. The wood is long past replacing. It’s not original, already run through a second skin. Certain boards were shed after a dozen voyages. Most of the bones couldn’t take the pace, couldn’t stand against the heavy use, couldn’t bend against the breakers. That hull had to be redone, it drank water like a man stumbling out of the desert. Even the first mast had seen a crack take its length. A spine was useless with that kind of splintering. Every part that wasn’t able to be stapled and secured had to be cut, clipped and resewn. The craft had been lightened in the exchange. It shouldn’t have come out from the surgeries with less heft, and yet it slipped through the waves like it was ephemeral.

Those sailors traded consistency, familiarity for speed. They didn’t mind the wounds, the healing, the revival, if it meant they might resurrect with a strength refreshed and bolstered. All those bootstrapped solutions should have clutched at the air, grappled with the sea, held this ship in place. Instead it seemed to catch only the wind at its back. It dipped into velvet trouble without hesitation. The water slipped off its back and forgot to pool and bother the corners and crevasses secreted between the slats. Maybe the sea didn’t recognize the vessel, let it press on without offering any bit of trouble. All those wounds were given in an old war, made in times far before, and now this strange craft floated above the rough runs and made no wake.

-VGB-