Ohio
I will remember you in a Golden Corral after church on a Sunday. Leading my grandparents to an all-you-can-eat buffet, I was showing them what they’d never seen before, this being their first visit to America. Lunches after church on Sundays were special because they were filled with adventure: new food, strange people, unintelligible. Ohio, I will remember the way you let us steep in this tiny little corner of you, let us take up the space you could’ve given someone else. I grew up not knowing you, and you were ok with that, letting me forget about assimilation, at least during these early days. You only ever made sense in Tata’s semi when he drove us around the parking lot and we got to look down at you through the windshield. I don’t know if you know this, but you took care of the children. Ohio, the burden of being from you is only slightly less than being not from you at all.
