The sky is backlit by these afterthoughts.
The golden hour and dusk shake hands then go
their separate ways, but not before burning
an iridescent edge behind the hill,
setting fire to a mesquite skeleton
that tried to escape in three directions
only to find itself enslaved by roots.
Fate dims the houselights. A westward screen glows.
An audience of grackles falls silent,
yields to a whispered wind, a jet’s dull moan.
The universe waxes nostalgic, hosts
a salon to discuss whether daylight
fades or night falls, then seems to lose its heart
for debating such semantics. Twilight
seizes the opportunity to own
this moment—seize the attention reserved
for flashes of brilliance, bending time like
a bow and breaking the speed of sound. But
darkness creeps, snuffing out the light beneath
its shroud, until I am without a prayer
of seeing the laughing rider who floats
past betrayed by just the luminescent
adornment spinning in time with her spokes.
