To the lighthouse
︎︎︎ Saoirse Bertram
︎ Dec 6, 2025
More than once ive been marked as cold
Nevertheless
This truth applied only to my strangerhood
For I have always been a
devoted sister.
Even if I at-times prone for aversion—You
know that
A pair of eyes isn’t all there is—nor a few
fingerprints neither &
Substance drives me mad
From the hallway mutters halfheard—
The only thing
that’s sustaining this growth
—If you can even call it that
is the possibility of coalescence.
Do you feel
yet hopeful these days sustain ?
And then—
Because I wouldnt
These drive me mad: other providers
especially(this too-too solid flesh)—
forthatmatter
the text itself; certain natural flavours,
footsteps down the hall; the door swings
over
the meridian. These few & more—
et cetera, et cetera—don’t compel me to
elaborate. We drive to the seaside my
brother and two sisters. While my
youngest sister covered her feet with
sand and
adjusted her parasol the rest of us dove under
the waves twisting curling locks and
from there then
into the sunshine how it stung our eyes
how our closeness was covered
blinded we were
white and rose and golden.
My brother slit his foot on a piece of seaglass
and seeing the trail of thin blood one tenth the
Thickness of a human hair allegedly felt
nothing
Enamoured so much with the skyblue
fragment he became(as he said) devoted
For what remains his eyes could fall on
nothing but more of the same.
While me & my first sister continued to
swim we left before sunset
One of those correct choices
that didn’t matter it was
Probably the better choice
Ive also remembered this before but
who hasnt
Not to say i was present
Not to say that you would—would not
have known my being
it’s just universal it’s just
something
that happens to everyone
Loosely defined feeling so
so alive and emptied or filled
depending
Brought back or moved along.
Write about it or pride over
their photographs maybe
pick up the telephone
Guess what made through our lashes
today. Do not compel me to elaborate i
will anyway.
Then a dear friend says something dull like
when will I be seeing you this way again
It’s really sweet—OK just don’t get your hopes
up when i’m more addicted to sunshine
than I you
&Dont say the word hamlet or
i’ll hang up the fucking telephone
right this second—
Sweet injury.
My brother in the physician’s lobby
or the bench outside the supermarket,
Regret Grocery,
or the chairs next to the cash machine at
the wash-and-fold, thinks
how blue the sky was
Of course the sky was pale(like my brother)
the glass blue(as his eyes Maybe)
&Conflation is
simple universal—blameless, i.e.,
something happened upon by everyone
All innumerable of us on the edge of the shore
the salt
belonging to no-one in particular
Dont mean anything in particular
Maybe pale glass brown eyes
Nevertheless
This truth applied only to my strangerhood
For I have always been a
devoted sister.
Even if I at-times prone for aversion—You
know that
A pair of eyes isn’t all there is—nor a few
fingerprints neither &
Substance drives me mad
From the hallway mutters halfheard—
The only thing
that’s sustaining this growth
—If you can even call it that
is the possibility of coalescence.
Do you feel
yet hopeful these days sustain ?
And then—
Because I wouldnt
These drive me mad: other providers
especially(this too-too solid flesh)—
forthatmatter
the text itself; certain natural flavours,
footsteps down the hall; the door swings
over
the meridian. These few & more—
et cetera, et cetera—don’t compel me to
elaborate. We drive to the seaside my
brother and two sisters. While my
youngest sister covered her feet with
sand and
adjusted her parasol the rest of us dove under
the waves twisting curling locks and
from there then
into the sunshine how it stung our eyes
how our closeness was covered
blinded we were
white and rose and golden.
My brother slit his foot on a piece of seaglass
and seeing the trail of thin blood one tenth the
Thickness of a human hair allegedly felt
nothing
Enamoured so much with the skyblue
fragment he became(as he said) devoted
For what remains his eyes could fall on
nothing but more of the same.
While me & my first sister continued to
swim we left before sunset
One of those correct choices
that didn’t matter it was
Probably the better choice
Ive also remembered this before but
who hasnt
Not to say i was present
Not to say that you would—would not
have known my being
it’s just universal it’s just
something
that happens to everyone
Loosely defined feeling so
so alive and emptied or filled
depending
Brought back or moved along.
Write about it or pride over
their photographs maybe
pick up the telephone
Guess what made through our lashes
today. Do not compel me to elaborate i
will anyway.
Then a dear friend says something dull like
when will I be seeing you this way again
It’s really sweet—OK just don’t get your hopes
up when i’m more addicted to sunshine
than I you
&Dont say the word hamlet or
i’ll hang up the fucking telephone
right this second—
Sweet injury.
My brother in the physician’s lobby
or the bench outside the supermarket,
Regret Grocery,
or the chairs next to the cash machine at
the wash-and-fold, thinks
how blue the sky was
Of course the sky was pale(like my brother)
the glass blue(as his eyes Maybe)
&Conflation is
simple universal—blameless, i.e.,
something happened upon by everyone
All innumerable of us on the edge of the shore
the salt
belonging to no-one in particular
Dont mean anything in particular
Maybe pale glass brown eyes
Saoirse Bertram is an Irish-American writer from Fairbanks, Alaska.