The sun sets so damned slow
in this desert, from the moment
it hides behind the horizon
all the way though the red
and orange, the deep gray
to the last light of day,
a woman might have just enough time
to change her whole life.
She could be smoking on the front porch
as the last hot rays paint her face
from beyond the hills. In the yellow
afterglow, she could crush the butt out
in the gravel and walk silently inside.
She could pack a bag or write a note.
Or not. And when the darkness drifts
like waves on the warm evening breeze
she could pick up her keys
from the kitchen table and see
a single planet shining
through the western window.
She could climb behind the wheel
in the black howl of night
and turn the engine over.
She could go. West or north–
any direction at all–
toward that pale, teasing light.
(Liza Porter, What Wildness Is This: Women Write about the Southwest (Southwestern Writers Collection)
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