Dave Bonta's "Valediction" is about a parting that refuses to behave like an ending. The speaker says goodbye not with a wave but with bare branches, which suggests winter, and perhaps a farewell that happens at a distance or through the landscape itself. Then comes a quiet correction in parentheses: it was "more of a hello." Something is beginning even as it closes.
The central image is striking. The other person "undid" the speaker the way fire plays a harp, so the strings sing as they snap. It's a beautiful kind of destruction. Each note sounds only once, which the speaker calls "an excellent discipline," a wry, half-consoling remark about loving something that can't be repeated.
The ending is gentler. The other person's smoke and the speaker's fog still mingle, and the speaker keeps feeding them wood. The mood is wistful but warm: grief, wonder, and a stubborn refusal to let the connection die out.