“A man dying of cancer whose sailboat was totaled yesterday in a race”

Upon the harbor’s salt-scoured slip,  
He watches sunlight glint and fade,  
The rigging slack, the hull now split—  
A dream undone by ocean’s blade.  

Yesterday, the wind was with him,  
White sails stretched out like hopeful wings;  
He felt the freedom in each limb,  
A king beloved by sea and things.  

But fate, capricious as a gale,  
Rose up in swells he could not chart;  
A wicked gust rent sail from rail,  
And shattered more than wood apart.  

Today, the chemo’s cold embrace  
Draws color from his weathered skin;  
He cups a mug, recalls the race—  
The fierce salt brine, the racing din.  

His boat now lies in patient heaps  
Atop the boathouse’s weeping floor;  
He mourns it quietly and keeps  
The splinters—tokens to restore.  

Yet in these final breaths he holds  
The taste of wind, the spray, the sun;  
Each battered rib and ragged fold  
Reminds him of what he has won:  

Not trophies brass or polished glass,  
But moments clipped on morning’s tide:  
A laugh between the clouds that pass,  
A gull that called as he would glide.  

A man, a boat, and open sea—  
He sails them still, in memory.

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