The Ship Officer and a Lady
The ship officer and the Lady
As I waited for my ship to dock at the onion pier,
a clerk came and handed me a bag of garlic for
the ship, I told him I had not ordered any and
showed him my three silver rings on my uniform.
He smirked and said I must have borrowed it to
impress the gullible, I shrank inside the uniform
and could not see my hands and feet.
Met a lady who was waiting for the ship too, she
was the wife of the chief engineer, and together
we strolled to the end of the dock, where
I resentfully threw the bag of garlic into the sea
where it swelled, became a life boat that slowly
drifted away. Back at the spot where the ship was
supposed to dock we’re told the ship had come
and gone. The lady sat on a pollard crying, took
her wedding ring off and threw it into the water,
I, who had taken Lasix 40, peed into the same sea
and its water turned pink. “Truly, this man is
a saint someone whispered”. Confident again
I swelled in the uniform and could see my hands
and feet . The clerk asked forgiveness and kissed
the onyx ring on my left index finger and gave me
another bag of garlic.
Copyright © Jan Oskar Hansen | Year Posted 2012
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