bleach white horizon
stark sun blinding
it seems from the highway
that ohio is the world
and the world is flat
past the last cloud
I could drop off the edge
of the world, find myself
on the bloomfield bridge
with night smelling of clove
cigarettes, stamped
out 20 years ago
I feel like ishmael
in this motel
where am I again?
blue ash, eyes peeled
bloodshot from the road
in this light my beard
is gun metal grey
I walk over to the door
pull it open to a night
of bad sleep and stars
it's 51 miles to vevay
indiana, the front moving
in pushes the breeze
when I breathe deeply
I smell my lover
waiting
Jason Baldinger is a poet from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A former Writer in Residence at Osage Arts Community, he is co-founder of The Bridge Series. He has multiple books available including and Everyone’s Alone Tonight with James Benger (Kung Fu Treachery Press) the chapbook Blind Into Leaving (Analog Submission Press) as well as the forthcoming Afterlife is a Hangover (Stubborn Mule Press). His work has been published widely in print journals and online. You can listen to him read his work on Bandcamp and on lps by the bands Theremonster and The Gotobeds.