The Beauty in the Breakdown of the Journey Is the Reward

The pale grace of the desert world
One February afternoon—
Sun, bare-blue moon, and red-tailed hawk—

Had to end in cold night sometime.
The cashier in the tchotchke shop
Whose laugh dragged like a broken wing

Beside a window in the sun
Had to echo in the dark dream,
And when aren’t they dark? Dreams, that is.