Turn Left at the Lantern

Every time I stay in Venice

I get tragically lost.

I even stay in the same 500-year-old apartment

Unafraid to rise at night,

Already friends with ghosts.

Despite being here thirteen times

I still get turned around

finding my way home.

"It's easy," you used to say,

Rolling your eyes.

"Turn left at the lantern,

Remember?"

Yes, I remember,

but it's not easy.

There’s always a light I forget to follow,

Even when it waits on me.

After twenty minutes

Of tracing the hazel-coloured

canal dappled with umber leaves--

I see it at last,

My lantern.

I am once again amazed

How I could have missed it.

It is black and wrought,

Curlicues creeping up the fogged glass,

delicate iron veins,

It glows a comforting amber glow

Submerging me in its amber, suspended in time.

My lantern is old,

Older than Shakespeare,

Older than my soul.

What if they take down my lantern one day?

It's so easy to miss but

If they take it down

Will I ever find my way home?

How does anyone do it

When their lanterns are gone?

I comfort myself: Maybe the map isn't mine.

Maybe I'm meant to circle the same canals.

Maybe home only exists wherever I stop looking.