Lighthouse

Increasingly now, the lighthouse parts
dark wings and a single stream of light
trickles through like a blade flashed
through the night. I wandered among

the sea, bobbed among crevices and ducked
my dull head under piers which crawled
with shiny lichen and a fish broken off from schools
of thought or spurned off a wave’s back.

The lighthouse colors the sea in swaths,
a golden limb blinding boats breaking upon
the shore, bliss tasted iron rust in their mouths.
Light leveled through shrouds and shades,

sun of the night, blighted watery fields
now unable to sleep. Rest, at the end of a song,
or between the strokes of arms, I paddled
forth into the gleaming brightness—

so hard wanted I—and the beam, as if
moved by wind, floated southward and I,
now dim my shadow wail to wane.