Cost

We were in NJ,                            
“Joisey”
just across the Goethals bridge, in some industrial truck stop of a town
I’d never seen before,
looking for franchised Mexican food and a half-way decent margarita
She pointed out to the neon jumble on the other side of the snow streaked glass.
Ha! I rememeber that motel, she said, chuckling to herself,

 mechanically
in one of her secondhand laughs.
The one your ex-husband took you to?, I asked, recalling an old story.
With the mirrors on the ceiling, and the champagne glass hottub?
No, she said.
A different one. Lots of condoms.
mega-condoms….
Oh, I said. Who was it, anyone I know?
No.
Doesn’t matter, she replied,

her face turned to the window.
pale in the rising light of the motorway

I felt that old familiar pang
that comes from valuing something
more than its owner