Numbed in front of the harbour
still salty from the Atlantic Ocean waves,
like a nose peeled by the sun,
from the helicopter, the cargo ship together
with the town made a picture, it seems.
But the distance between them is too large
like the old sailor and his youth
in this same harbour of rainy Venice.
The sailor observes an unchanged panorama
those elaborate, nice, wet and upright
boxes made from leathery cardboard.
He thinks, should I even this time go
into the veined pattern of the streets
that look like swollen blue veins
on the calf of his slow-walking leg.
He is measuring the distance from the ship to the town:
a small boat would do
and once it was possible to swim across
but towards that tiny building with the dome
half way to its pier  
the sea wrinkles just like his
thumbprint for the first time stamped
on the Venetian glass rose