P O L Y

David Cole

There’s nowhere to go when you’re from this place. These mountains rise up high up and claim us like we are rooted to them. Somewhere between where America remembers the smart and the beautiful. No one chooses here anymore, they just can’t pull loose. 

                                                                              And you understood this though your mountains are hills and your biscuits are flat and you go to Tim Horton’s where the donut holes are the best and you just have to try them, please. Every time you have one you’ll think of me. 

                                                                                                          But   they   don’t   have   Tim Horton’s in Kentucky and that’s why we went in the first place, just to try something different. 

                                                                                                                                   And    that’s why we got that Air BnB when you think about it. We were Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn and we both knew who those people even were and that made everything about the kissing and the fucking better in that order and then again. 

                                                             We showed up with our Planned Parenthood tests and all the heavy words we were using and the gifts we gave each other. First a trinket from some faraway place and then ourselves. Can you believe this is only for this weekend? What if we did this every year? What if we never left? Into the night the question marks flew and the tears came quick when we realized each was impossible for one reason or another. We were living a fantasy for no more than 72 hours and then the booking would be up. Down the highway we’d go in separate directions until we hit familiar pavement again. 

                                     For me it was back between the mountains, and you somewhere over the hills. 

I waited to hear from you zip codes away but I never did again. 

                      It is hard to mourn the loss of what was a dream. 

                      There’s nowhere to go when you’re from this place.