Nocturne
by Olivia Macassey, Bay of Islands
Our car travels along a faint vein of dust,
lights picking out hedges and fences
suddenly anonymous, on the bends;
the occasional punctuation of a white
letterbox
and somewhere next to me in the darkness
you lean your forehead against the glass,
look out between the bones of trees, escape
into dark moulded landscapes.
This is no longer a question of symmetry
but I dream about you there sometimes, sitting
beneath that dark tree we glimpsed
during the long drive through the night,
in the sudden pool of light, your waiting
face upturned. The sound of leaves in
that windless plain so slight and serious,
and my sleeping feet in the long grass.
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