Ohio Turnpike

By Joseph Teti

---

After that last semester, ‘time had come
for me to head back home to Maryland.
My education was complete for now,
although my name recalled me to the East.

Saying goodbyes to each friend still in town,
goodbye, even, to the old clocktower;
packing the car with what could be assigned
and leaving with the early morning mists...

For hours and for miles, a straight road
whose margin fades forever and forever
at the horizon line. For miles and
for hours, dull brick duplications of
rest stops, cornfields, cornfields. Driving straight lines.

I watched this cloud for much of that long trip:
a single, wispy cirrus cloud, way up,
directly to the East, in front of me,
cloaking the sun. For the most part, it did
nothing. In fact, the sun seemed brighter then--
magnified. Soon, either the wind had moved
the cloud, or maybe just the sun had moved.
Shading my eyes, I pulled the visor down
inside the car. And then it seemed to me
that I’d outrun my shadows this time.
                                                                   
​                                                                     Still...

---

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)