KEEPER OF THE LIGHT
I fork rice and breakfast beans into my mouth. Gnaw
a slither of beef, rough as a donkey’s ear, then wash it down
with boxed apple juice. Read the paper on the sofa.
My job doesn’t start till the sun drops
to its knees and fires pink arrows into the bellies
of clouds. Only then, do I climb the two hundred stairs,
spiraling up through the guts of the tower,
that from a distance in daylight looks like a brick telescope
wedged into the ground. Only then, do I load the lamp
with whale oil, and trim the wick so it burns evenly
like a red beard across a pirate’s face. Only then, do I scrub
the layer of carbon off the reflectors and adjust
the Fresnel lens, which is like a lampshade made out of shards
of an expensive mirror, harnessing the many stems of light
into a bouquet to be hurled out, in three second intervals.
Only then do I turn the shortwave to the chatter
of ships. Only then, binoculars around my neck,
do I slide open the door and walk the rail,
a salty breeze curling through my pores, as I comb
the dark waves with my eyes. Flag whipping
overhead. Thunder cooking up in clouds.
Then the voices start rumbling in. I read you
thirteen year-old girl pinned down by your friend’s
nineteen year-old brother in a basement and excavated
as your favorite Crosby, Stills and Nash song
plays cruelly over the speakers. I read you housewife
with a crushed starfish in your belly, clutching
a wine glass like a buoy. I cannot promise
help is on the way, but I read you high school senior
razor marks ricocheting up your forearm. I read you
husband watching school after school of naughty minnows
swim across the screen of your smart phone, as the rain gathers
around your ankles in the matrimonial rowboat. I read you
twenty year-old girl, smearing kerosene over your breasts,
like baby oil, a carousel of men assembling, jerking up
and down, like warped horses on a misery-go-round. I read you
friend from childhood, counting the petals of a daisy, I kill me,
I kill me not. I read you dockworker, wandering
the corridors under the ocean’s surface,
stuffing your unemployment check into the belly button
of a slot machine. I read you sixteen year-old girl,
getting jabbed with the t in the word slut
as you tremble on the train platform and lean back
into the broad metal arms of eternity. I read you
and chart your coordinates. Note your howls. And no,
I cannot save you, or bring supplies—just sit inside
this giant candle and fling thimbles of light
in your direction, whispering, I hear you, hold tight.
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JEFFREY MCDANIEL is the author of 5 books of poetry. His fifth book, Chapel of Inadvertent Joy, comes out this winter from University of Pittsburgh Press. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in the Hudson Valley.
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Read more work by Jeffrey McDaniel:
A selection of work at The Poetry Foundation
Poem at Poets.org
Article in Poetry