You drove slowly, taking the back roads

when you could—passing the hedgerows

of farmland and dormant factories.

We got lost a time or two

and watched the sunlight sink

beneath a windmill in the headlights.

When you pointed out the farmhouse

squat beside the road, I saw you smile

and couldn’t help but think of another life

on a different night—all those wasted lies

and the air thick with the scent of time.

I don’t want us to arrive too early,

you said, then silence came. Something

hidden in the bruise-dark night coming on.

Perhaps we should have written

more or called more often. Maybe

we should have. Too late for detours now.

You looked away, staring

at the turned, ploughed dirt

in the distance, and the seagulls

devouring carrion in the field,

Then we drove on, the tires popping

over gravel, a thrum in the quiet drum

of the earth, leaving it all behind.

B. James McCarthy is a poet from Newfoundland and Labrador who resides in Toronto, Ontario. Their work has appeared in the University of Toronto's Acta Victoriana, The Great Lakes Review, Stony Brook University's The Sandpiper Review, Alchemy Literary Magazine, The South Shore Review, and Savant-Garde, amongst others. They hold an Hon. Bachelor of Creative Writing & Publishing.