the end of everything

The end of everything

The master of the old tank ship that resembled a schooner
sat fretting in his cabin; for twenty years he had been
the master of the ship, a friendship between the animate
and the inanimate had developed.
During the war years, the ship delivered the high-octane plane
fuel from the USA to Britain, with him on the bridge in storms
and calm; they had seen ships blown up by torpedoes both
on the starboard side and the portside, it was as the ship and
he breathed in unison.
For five years, they had traversed across the Atlantic except for
a few times when she was in dry dock for maintenance and
when everyone had gone ashore, he stayed onboard, keeping
 her company.
So many faces, too many to remember, had crossed her decks
no one stayed long, she had no comfort to offer, narrow cabins
the shower units were connected to the cold sea; didn’t they
see she had kept them alive?
It was over now she had been sold as scrap, he, homeless.
Once the king had given him medals, he and the ship had
been extolled in the papers that said she was a lucky ship
and him they called a great seaman.
Soon enough, he would go to the mystic island were sailors
and Nirvana’s Ocean cleanses the memories of the departed.