The image of a lighthouse keeps recurring,

toylike with diamond patterns down its walls.

A harlequin in black and white that flashes

on and off and on and off: highlighting a thin

peninsular. Below it wooden houses

with verandahs overlooking sand

and more sand, inside living rooms

not confined by walls and lives

not defined by clocks, just the beam

at night that blinks awake calm

and blinks again on the illumination

of this—one second hung in the night.

An instant stripped clean, pure

in the sweep of light. Invisible in the day