The One Who Stayed in Ohio

A message while I was stopped at a light:

still tell people about Ohio, you

were so funny at that rest stop—I held

the phone and tried to get back to

the joke, the drive, whatever we'd been

arguing about that week. Nothing came.

I can fill in the rest stop: fluorescents,

the vending row, the coffee that tastes the same

everywhere. But me in there,

mid-punchline, still earning it—

that version didn't come back with me.

He stayed. He's still there in the lit

sameness of a highway rest stop,

apparently still going. The light went green.

I put the phone away and drove.

There's a version of me I've never seen

who is apparently hilarious.