Candlelight, harbor wind, and late letters

This afternoon the harbor looked like a sentence: long, patient, salt-stung. A highlife record crackled on the turntable while the kettle finished its stubborn dialogue; between translating a Chimamanda paragraph and coaxing a Swedish clause back into Igbo, patience felt like a modest art.

A candle burned low on the window seat; I wrote a short love poem to the man in his late forties and another playful line to the woman who makes the room laugh. They answer in different rhythms - one in long, lined letters, the other in quick voice notes - and the lighthouse keeps both of them in its light.