Bridget Fahey O’Brien
Through His Eyes
Inspiration Piece
Escape
Annmarie Lockhart
Response
Driving my daughter home for spring break,
stuck in stop-and-go traffic on Pennsylvania 95,
we see a small dog, chow or a type of terrier maybe,
wearing the face of joy and running north in the left
lane, normally reserved for passing.
Drivers try to corral him against the median, but
this dog doesn’t know from a rock and a hard place.
Men abandon their cars, turning the road into a rodeo,
dashing and grabbing at a little dog running like the wind,
his frosted fur choppy as a stormy day on the Delaware.
A veer to the right, a swerve to the left, and a final hard right
take our canine hero the wrong way down an entrance ramp
top speed, past the 18-wheeler stopped amid the chaos.
We lose sight of him and my daughter, different now
than she was in September, calls 911.
Checking to see if the story made the news, we discover
he’s not the first runaway to hit that open highway.
Two others made the break on that very same
road, 2 and 5 years previous. Some roads
were made for the run of a lifetime.
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