Usually, it doesn’t happen so dramatically –
at dusk: the silhouette of a whiskered
man in a cowboy hat. Tethered

to the setting sun, his steed trots
into glooming desert. He turns,
smiles before he’s lost between

the glide of rattlesnakes, the scamper
of prairie dogs. The radiance
of his cigarette etches the night before him.

But goodbyes often choke a day. I catch
glimpses of them at twilight
as the rose bush surrounding the mailbox

shuts each of its blooms like a tired eye.
Or as smudges of moisture, the tangible
breath of my children, spackle car windows,

fade into the afternoon as my wife
speeds back to the deli for a forgotten
loaf of rye. Today I found one: a boy

knelt before his father’s coffin. Carved
with age, the man lay content as stone.
The air above him – quiet as shade.