child set adrift

adrift, waves lapping at the canoe
with a touch both gentle and caustic,
the pitch of the hull mild
compared to the nights before

the child strained their eyes
to peer past deep gray stratus
at the medley of flickering stars
failing to cooperate and coalesce
into navigable constellations

every night, the story repeats –
the sun offers their daily solace,
bearings of east and west,
but that is all they provide

one evening, under a growing crescent,
the heave of the boat kicked
a bit more sudden than any wave could

the child, startled, sprang up
from beneath their trembling eyelids
to find an obsidian humpback
curiously perched beneath the canoe
gazing back at the wandering child

without a moment of breath
the child began to cry –
cry tears of exhaustion held back,
cry calls for any help the whale could offer,
cry wails of relief that after
untold days meandering unknown seas
a potential friend crossed their path