Excerpt From “Keeper of the Light”

My job doesn’t start till the sun drops

to its knees and fires pink arrows into the bellies

of clouds. Only then, do I climb the two hundred stairs,

spiraling up through the guts of the tower,

that from a distance in daylight looks like a brick telescope

wedged into the ground. Only then, do I load the lamp

with whale oil, and trim the wick so it burns evenly

like a red beard across a pirate’s face. Only then, do I scrub

the layer of carbon off the reflectors and adjust

the Fresnel lens, which is like a lampshade made out of shards

of an expensive mirror, harnessing the many stems of light

into a bouquet to be hurled out, in three second intervals.

Only then do I turn the shortwave to the chatter

of ships. Only then, binoculars around my neck,

do I slide open the door and walk the rail,

a salty breeze curling through my pores, as I comb

the dark waves with my eyes. Flag whipping

overhead. Thunder cooking up in clouds.

Then the voices start rumbling in. I read you

thirteen year-old girl pinned down by your friend’s

nineteen year-old brother in a basement and excavated

as your favorite Crosby, Stills and Nash song

plays cruelly over the speakers. I read you housewife

with a crushed starfish in your belly, clutching

a wine glass like a buoy. I cannot promise

help is on the way, but I read you high school senior

razor marks ricocheting up your forearm. I read you

husband watching school after school of naughty minnows

swim across the screen of your smart phone, as the rain gathers

around your ankles in the matrimonial rowboat. I read you

twenty year-old girl, smearing kerosene over your breasts,

like baby oil, a carousel of men assembling, jerking up

and down, like warped horses on a misery-go-round. I read you

friend from childhood, counting the petals of a daisy, I kill me,

I kill me not. I read you dockworker, wandering

the corridors under the ocean’s surface,

stuffing your unemployment check into the belly button

of a slot machine. I read you sixteen year-old girl,

getting jabbed with the t in the word slut

as you tremble on the train platform and lean back

into the broad metal arms of eternity. I read you

and chart your coordinates. Note your howls. And no,

I cannot save you, or bring supplies—just sit inside

this giant candle and fling thimbles of light

in your direction, whispering, I hear you, hold tight.