I met him at the Heartbreak Motel. A thirty-five-dollars-a-night
no-nonsense no-thrills motel. Hours before he materialized,
I threw the key cards & myself to the edge of the bed,

thought of the split roadkill I saw up I-70. Gettysburg:
weird tourist trap, war junk store, cold cider
in a cold November getting colder. Dirty ice

from a dirty ice machine. He made fun of the TV
bolted to the dresser. We play-stabbed each other
with imaginary bayonets, walked through empty

battlefields & got soaked in rain. We smelled of damp
grass & I wondered how long we could possibly
keep doing this. The cheap sheets seemed clean

when I kissed him––the kind of kissing
that only comes at the end of distance. In the morning
when he left me, I watched him walk across the motel

parking lot. I drove home north into a snowstorm.
My love for him glacier, moving downhill under its own weight.

ALLIE HOBACK is a poet from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Southwest Virginia. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in New Ohio Review, Poetry Northwest, and Salamander, among others. She lives in Washington, DC, where she professionally keeps houseplants alive.