Near

Near an exit ramp off Route 15

Outside of Emmitsburg, Pennsylvania,

I walked along the shoulder of the highway,

Between the reflectors and the edge of the road,

About four hundred feet from our broken-down Honda Pilot,

Looking up the hill, looking down at the ground,

Looking for somewhere a cab could come pick us up,

Some store with a parking lot,

As cars raced past me, going seventy miles per hour

Up the exit ramp, close enough

I could feel the wind from them cruising by

Brush against me like a rude pedestrian,

When what was, maybe, a Toyota 4 Runner,

Careening up the exit ramp,

Jerked over through the white reflectors

Onto the shoulder, not more than

Ten feet from where I was walking, then realized

It wasn’t the road, and maybe seeing me,

Jerked back onto the exit ramp, speeding away,

Never slowing down.

I stopped and stared 

At the tire marks just in front of me,

The smell of the seared rubber

Lingering like cigar smoke,

The stream of semi-trucks and cars

That kept flowing along Route 15,

The overgrown grass along the shoulder

Still green and brown and yellow,

Turning around, I saw our car,

Several hundred feet away

With my wife absorbed on the phone 

With the tow truck company,

Our girls in the back seat

Staring out the window,

As the thought occurred to me like a force of nature,

Like the core truth of the universe;

I deserve nothing.