I stay in skeleton light:
the quiet thrill of undressing
in the lantern room. Times I knew
you were watching, or not.
I lit the lamp, for you had come.
Your glance was shoal, was shade,
but I am a catcher of sailors
and wrecked men. No siren, no voice
to make men stay, but my light is blade.
Deem me safe harbor, soft cove.
When they jump ship at the sight
of rock and roiling sea, I watch
from the gallery, drinking whiskey.
I trace the land, its fine edge and lilt.
Its stagger. I arrive at loneliness
as precise as X, as the center
of a map, as latitude and longitude
of shattered lens refract the huge blue
burden of sea. Now I
am the keeper and you,
the lost. I fight to hold fast
to the wide leg of lighthouse
to prove oath. Prove luck,
thick as kelp. But sometimes,
hands slick on a buoy,
I float to sea. The tide,
how she brings me back,
my many mouths
and singing skin,
to the lightship.
To the vessel fictitious.
To the best of all shores,
the one combed with rain
& shrouded in the scratch
of the wind-whipped isle.
O sharp harbor, where all my men,
splayed
open,
lie.
