North Pole

The captain whistles a wistful tune
on the Neptune blue.
He says to me he controls the sea,
a sort of snake charmer,
watery heads dancing to his hand
as he motions like a cosmic conductor.

He smiles like the moon,
eyes silver as the stars.
He screams, “Here we are!
Here we are!” Gliding like a melody,
going nowhere, positively.

“Eden was not a garden,
but a beautiful, blue sea!”
he tells me. As we near the North pole,
he immediately sets his sight on the South.
He will sweep the whole length
of the world in less than one week.

As if the water were made of ichor,
he hungers with colorful eyes,
dances like rain on the deck,
sings to the eloquent sea.
And for a moment he simply breathes as a man,

perfectly
pathologically
happy.