Lighthouse
When I die I will walk from the old house of my body
to the lighthouse. Each moment will light up
like a flared match: here where the old apple
arches over the path, ducked under
a thousand times, here where the cliff’s flank
bedlams thrift’s pink, here where a knot of seals
bask in last sun, dark heads breaking glitter open,
here in November dark where a sick lamb
collapsed on an edge and I knew what would happen
that wild night, here where an adder erupted,
coiled the oil of itself into earth – each memory flashes –
when I reach the lighthouse I’ll be transparent,
every one of them released from the skull’s dark round,
imprinted on the beloved ground layer upon layer
into stone, sand, sea-campion. A last look back
at the old house, suddenly lit.
Sue Proffitt lives in Hallsands, South Devon, is a Hawthornden Fellow and has been published in a number of magazines, anthologies and poetry competitions. She has two poetry collections: Open After Dark (Oversteps, 2017) and The Lock-Picker (Palewell Press, 2021), and is currently looking for a home for her third collection.
Amethyst Review 