I like where this one went, although I'm a little frustrated with it because I don't think I really captured the mood and the relationship like Ricky did in the original. (I have to disagree with Noah - I love the "mundane" restaurant parts in the middle. I think they set the tone perfectly.) And the last line is superb. Anyway, here's mine.

Scenic Loop Cafe

The cut-limestone arch etched

in air a perfect frame

for a saguaro-ironwood forest

perfect sight:

a many armed saguaro backlit

by a sherbet sunset, just before

the phosporous green pop exit of

the sun's entrance elsewhere

Before the frame: you and me at

gentle peace leaning against

the roughened wall enjoying the

slow summer heat, slowly

crumbling the crab cakes bought

at that place we liked

so much that place

which was to have

been our rehearsal dinner.

You watched the pink orange reds

slowly turn to an inky black; a house

down in the valley bravely defiant

of June and her heat with a porch strung

round-a-bout with lights meant

for Christ's Mass.

I watched only you, marveling

at what had just

recently dissipated

between us,

at how the swing of your hand

no longer rose

within me the need of connection,

marveling at how the final

dying-sweet rays of a sherbet

sky illuminated before

unseen contours of the desert's

most known and unknown majesty.