Who says that, in time,
a light this close will flare out,
will wrap what has been as distant
as those ships that carry on,
carry out another moment of remorse,
another memory I compel to be
as fleeting as me?
I have been the lighthouse, too long
hoping for one more reunion.
Though I’m abandoned, like this island
that has been forgotten, though not
ever forgiven from within it,
not within each grain
of burning, churning sand.
Whose lips are starving like mine?
Another taste to collect a thought
that what I had, deep in arms,
from deeper oceans, will not,
cannot come close to this territory
that divides inside, like trails carved out,
like anything to make me walk,
like anything to get me to speak
these withering words, from everlasting
fragments in an ingrown heart.
One more lick of a poisonous memory
to set me to sleep a final time,
to keep me guessing at what life
among that sea, will forgive
this eternal crime.
Modern Romanticism 