Rochester

The car is parked in a ditch before the toll booth,
its lights off and the doors locked.

I don’t have a dollar,
and the booth worker has let me
walk to the convenience store in town
to take money from the ATM.

It’s spring already, and the flowers
in the night are blooming like a dead woman’s hair.

Tonight, the clerk at the counter has dead eyes,
and is reading a motorcycle magazine to stay awake.

The store aisles are full of junk food.
Hostess cupcakes and Monster energy.
Nothing in the emptiness of the night.

The crickets in the nearby creek make me jump.

For now, I’m just a scavenger.
I came down from off of the highway.

Almost drove completely through a flock of deer,
and all I want to know is doesn’t the thought
that you can dump your car by the side of the road
and spend the rest of your life walking
seem so sad and beautiful
that it could break your fucking heart?

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BLAKE LYNCH is a law school graduate, media journalist, and late stage cancer survivor. His first publication was in Chelsea when Lynch was still seventeen. Over the years, Lynch has published in more than fifty journals including Turk’s Head Review, Two Cities Review, Lines + Stars Journal, Pulp Magazine, 2River, Zygote in My Coffee, Pif Magazine, and Shampoo. Lynch has published two chapbooks and is working on a third to be called The Rain Horses.