The ocean is a fingerprint and the boat arrived at noon coming slowly into the back end of the main harbor near the long pier. It was an old boat with three masts and the hull was blue with a long green line and the captain was French.

He said the boat was fifty years old and had been built to race and then the war came and she had been left without masts and he smiled and said it was like being born without legs and he talked about how the boat sat in a dry dock during the war and he said the war as if there had only ever been the one war and I knew what he meant and the winter wind came and unpacked itself piece by piece building up hollow castles of the earth full of ideas and many fish swim in the sea because the earth is a dream.

The captain said the boat was taken by the government after the war and then it was used as a classroom and boys who had nothing but trouble were on the boat and they sailed around the world and the first star is the last and the captain said he had trouble with her engine and after the new piston came they would sail for Djibouti.

The captain drank coffee and he had curly hair and a rust colored sweater and there was a thread in the middle of the front of the sweater and he wrapped it around one forefinger and unwrapped it as if it were the propeller of another boat and he was waiting for the tide.

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