Midnight Studying

By Joseph Teti

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At school, I’d study long into the nights
until the library would close. When asked
to leave, sometimes I’d be so stiff of neck
from squinting over some assignment-texts,
and so exhausted of brain-sweat, I would
straighten up, and play a game with myself--

watching the reflection in the window;
never looking down, but sorting the books;
still gazing forward, packing up the bag;
getting there blind and seeing, both at once;

then I would hasten: the custodian
was making his last rounds, and final call.

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Joseph Teti is an emerging poet from Hyattsville, MD. He is a recent graduate from Hillsdale
College, and a fierce defender of Platonism and Romanticism.

Joseph's other work on Foreshadow:
​Napping (Poetry, August 2023)
Ohio Turnpike (Poetry, September 2023)