Lit at Dusk

You climb the stairs. You count and lose count at the same turn of the stair, the way everybody does.

At the top the lamp is cold. You light it. It does what a light does, which is to stop being about you.

The beam goes over the water and over the forty lights and over the ocean liners passing on a schedule you don't know. Somewhere, a card is dropping down a chute into the hands of someone who is going to be exactly as tired as you were.

You write in the Log. Fog. Wind from the northeast, as usual. Lit at dusk. Kettle on.

Then you write the line you know is the last. Whoever gets it has to thaw it. And you put your thumb on the ink until it freezes.