The dock waits patiently.
It waits for boats to putter in after a day
of surfing underneath the sunshine,
cool spray on the bow dancing in between
the rainbows that glisten off the lake,
skipping over waves of laughter like a rock
thrown perfectly across the water by the hand of God.
The boats adore the dock because it is
so stable and secure and never strays,
though the dock pines for watery adventures
it only hears about in orphaned scraps of conversation
that fall upon it as it strains its weathered ear
to eavesdrop over hollow footsteps and rolling laughter
while sea boots trod heavily
- THUMP THUMP THUMP -
toward the local bar and stories full of
What A Fool Believes spill out of the galoshes.
The dock, it seems, is a friend of the boats on a need to know basis only,
and the boats do not believe the dock needs to know so much.
They only seek it out at the end of a long day,
its brightly colored buoys of cheer lining it like
so many fancy baubles as it reaches out
across the harbor to gather the crafts and shield them
from the nightly storm until the sun begins to tease
once more with its playful song.
Deep into the evening after several pints of local ale and
endless dances with any pretty girl who will listen to tall tales of rogue waves
and phantom serpents and lewd jokes that are bellowed
in a language only sailors (and docks) can understand,
they stumble back along the dimly lit familiar path,
eyes closed, mostly,
and crawling into bed are rocked to sleep by the dock
as it cradles them gently like an infant
and creaks a lullaby composed by the sounds along the shore,
time kept by the metronome of the lapping waves.
"Good ole dock," they mumble as they do a different kind of drifting.
