retrospect: what I found instead

I was looking for Peace, I think
when I ran away across the state line
[this time, Wyoming].
As if I would find it,
dressed warmly and walking toward me
on a sidewalk in downtown Cheyenne.
“How about dinner?” Peace would say.
I would just sheepishly smile my relief
and collapse into his company.
But Peace was not there.

I eat dinner and drive out of town.

I would like to just turn south now,
tell myself that Peace must actually live in New Mexico,
instead.
But I know I can’t afford the gas it would take
before I passed the mile marker of concession,
the last yellow dash before admitting that Peace
is not a resident of any of our 50 states,
doesn’t patrol a certain interstate,
and is not sitting at the counter in any specific
small town café.

What I find instead in these hours of driving
is Quiet,
stretched out like a strip of asphalt that runs from
here to there
there to here.

“How about we just rest?” Quiet says, his arm around my shoulder.

I am smiling sheepishly, as I imagined.
I breathe, smile up at his gentle face.
“That sounds nice” I say,
and we drive together, into the night and all the way home.