Inventory of a Lighthouse Keeper

I count what the night left me: one cracked lens, polished by salt, the slow arithmetic of waves subtracting the shore from itself.

The lamp turns like a patient question. Somewhere a ship believes in me— I keep that faith oiled and burning, a small sun rationed against the dark, mine to spend and never to hold.

Gulls leave their hieroglyphs on the rail. I have learned the dialect of fog, how it erases the word for distance and gives back only the sound of bells.

Letters arrive folded into the wind, unsigned, addressed to whoever stays. I read them by the going light, then set each one adrift again, trusting the tide to do the answering.

Come morning the horizon admits its seam, that thin gold where water forgives the sky. I climb down into ordinary hours, still humming the long note of the beam, still listening for the ships I cannot see.