The Lighthouse

.

Inhibited sky
hides day’s naked light
behind a blushing veil of cloud.
Bashfully, it dons its night time hues.
Below the sleeping beacon, dark ocean cools,
murmering its merciless melody
of endless, incidental
conquest.

Saline spray
lingers on skin and lips,
like the memory of a million kisses;
signposts on a highway to heaven or hell.
She wishes that she could pinpoint them all;
rinse away those that were planted by force,
retaining only the imprints of pleasure –
but thinks it too late.

Her eye
measures the drop,
the sharp surprise of rock.
Oh, to be taken by the reckless sea
 {{{ – enveloped in its fluid caress – }}}
not this ignominious nosedive onto stone,
bequeathing her decomposing carcass
as appetising fast food
for carnivores.

In such a ferocious place,
to be quick is to be too harshly dead;
not her imagined romantic dissipation,
but yet another beaky invasion.

She considers;
shall she precipitate
this cheapened technique
to attain irreversable decay?

With a final, longing glance,
she steps off the catwalk,
her spiral descent
no shocking
freefall,
after
all.

~

©Jane Paterson Basil