The Orchard of Lighthouses

At the cape's elbow, the lighthouse keeps an orchard of rust, pears of salt welded to its ribs, wind-polished and bitter. Gulls circle like loose punctuation, etching the air with their thin, white knives.

Inside, a spiral stair hums in its sleep, its steps worn into shallow moons. I climb and the dust lifts, a pale veil, each footfall a question asked to the tide.

The lamp is gone, yet the room glows anyway, not with light but with the stubbornness of weather. A jar of old kerosene still breathes, its ghost of flame licking my knuckles.

From here the sea is a folded sheet, creases of current, a seam of far rain. I hang my silence on the railing, and it dries into a signal no one named.