The Rusting Sentinel

The lantern room is blind with salt, windows cracked like winter ice where gulls now nest in the fractured beams and sing the ocean’s hollow song.

No ships look to this rocky shelf, their digital eyes fixed on the stars while the spiral stair crumbles to rust and the heavy bronze gears sleep.

Yet the stone tower stands against the gale, a stubborn memory of the flame, waiting for a phantom wick to burn a hole in the fog.