Ship wheel and anchor script design

The wind has backed north again and the harbour master at Ostia has given me the steering oar of the grain ship Callisto for the run east. Forty men on the benches, a cargo of wheat sacks stacked higher than the mast, and a captain who sleeps through every squall as if the sea were a cradle. I have the oar lashed to my hands by dawn, watching the pale line of the coast slide off the stern.

You asked me on the quay why I would not take the post at your brother's warehouse, where the nights are quiet and the roof does not move. I could not tell you then, so let me try now. The oar answers to a steady hand, the hull answers to the oar, and the whole ship leans toward wherever I keep her. Someone has to point the bow. The anchor is another matter. It is the thing that holds a ship fast in one harbour until the wind shifts and every man aboard is dreaming of a second port. I will not be the stone in the mud for anyone, not even you, and you would not want me to be.

On the last night in port, the boy Demas sat by the rail with his knees drawn up and asked whether I was afraid of open water. I told him I was only ever afraid of stillness. A ship that never leaves its mooring rots from the keel up.

I will bring the ivory comb you wanted from Alexandria, and I will come back up the Tiber on the first flood tide after the autumn gales. Keep a lamp in the window if you can spare the oil.

Your husband, Lykos