Keeper of the Drowned Flame

He built his light to outlast God—

glass taller than the pines,

a tower forged from stubborn hope

and hunger sharp as tides.

__________________________

She watched him trim the wick each dusk

with hands gone raw and thin,

his pupils shrunk to needle-points

against burning within.

__________________________

When first she stole down to the shore

where storm and hunger meet,

she sang no siren’s lethal note—

just shook the sand from her bare feet.

__________________________

The schooner cracked like Sunday bread,

its ribs exposed and white.

She dragged its carcass up the cliffs

beneath the mocking stars that night.

__________________________

Now when the beacon starts to dim,

she walks the tide’s cruel turn,

her apron filled with splintered masts,

her hair salt-stiff and burned.

__________________________

The sailors curse her shadowed form,

the gulls cry thief! thief!

But oh—how bright his lantern glows

when fed their shattered grief.

From the Waterlogged Journals of: The Lost Books - "Libri Perditi" - where even damnation wears a wedding band.