for sailor dan

I once met a sailor who had never been to sea

I used to see him almost daily outside to shop where I would stop to buy a pack of cigarettes

And I would give him one

He would tell me that he used to be in navy

That he sailed a Spanish Galion across the Atlantic and back again

You see, I knew that he was lying but I part of me

A part of me wanted to believe him

Because this landlocked sailor

He was also a magician

I once saw him roll a joint with one hand

Saw him turn his monthly welfare checks into a navy pension plan

His name was Dan

And he used to draw the same picture over and over again

It was a perfect replica of that Spanish Galion

He started by doodling them on napkins before bumming enough spare change

To buy some big pieces of bristol board and a black pen

By now he’s probably drawn thousands of them

Every hipster kid in my home town has a copy

He used to sell them for a few bucks or a cup of coffee

But honestly I don’t think that’s why he drew that ship

And think truthfully, he wanted to sail away on it

He already had the sailors cap and the long beard that was going grey

And on a good day the vastness of the prairies resembles an ocean

And if you squint your eyes hard enough

You can ships rolling over the canola yellow horizon

And Dan, Dan could be captain of that Spanish Galion

I can see him now just off the starboard bow

Barking orders to squigy kids like they were his deckhands

Looking to me like I was his first mate and together we would sail towards the harvest moon

Testing fate

Smoking cigarettes covered in salt water as waves of wheat fields came crashing down on us

We would navigate our way through the dust kicked up from farmer’s feet

Dodging icebergs carved from hay bails and sheaves of wheat

Because we were the centre of the universe

We could see the end of the earth horizon in every direction

And together we would unearth that anchor of alcoholism and in-affection

Pull it up by its roots

And cast off into a sea of impossibility

A place where the same black pen drawing the same black lines over and over again

Can make homeless dreams a reality

A place where we can be sailor

Even though we’ve never been to sea