No longer young, he paces back and forth
across the comedy club stage with the sort
of limping walk people associate with un-
funny things, yet he is hilarious. No matter
what story he’s telling—about his family,
his friends, his car, or his cat—the audience
laughs. It’s like he invented the word comedy
and the jesters who came after him are pale
reflections of the real thing. Neither hand-
some nor plain, his clothes nondescript, his
shoes a bit dusty, you wouldn’t know him if
you saw him on the street five minutes after
the show. But as long as he’s moving his lips
and holding that microphone in his hand like
a fool’s bauble, this aging funnyman with his
thinning hair and wire-rimmed glasses, makes
you forget all your troubles and worries, your
petty squabbles, and disappointments. He’s
saying it’s not so bad, folks, and you believe
him. In fact, you feel a loosening of the knots
in your chest as you laugh and laugh, so much
so that when the comedian says goodnight and
exits the stage, you feel nearly weightless, as
if you might float to the ceiling like a helium
balloon. But his step grows heavier when he
leaves the building and drives to that cheap
motel too close to the highway where he takes
his blood pressure pill with a swig of bourbon
and calls his wife of thirty-five years just to say,
I miss you like crazy, Honey. I’ll be home soon.
Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of eight full-length collections of poetry, including The Light That Follows Us Home, which will soon be released by Press 53. Her work has been widely published and has won numerous awards, including the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize and International Book Award for Poetry.
