New Jersey is a convenience store

I hunted for an ATM on an October night.

I had avowed to never use heroin again but now

I was half-drunk or half-sober

The bartender immediately made me for what I was

miserable and unconvinced that anyone had an answer

or anything to offer

to supplement the human condition

there were bottles of liquor in the back

a dining room off to the right

down a rickety hallway

I told him I was broke

when I didn’t leave him much of a tip

On a sixty dollar tab

I have to imagine

I wasn’t the first

Nor the last

To lie in a barroom

under dim light

in the fall of a New Jersey night

Then my house guest and I

Left to go cop

In the projects of Trenton

I made him drive

I was too drunk

We showed up

And parked in a fenced in lot

“Don’t talk to nobody”

advised

The man on the phone who I never met.

In New Jersey

There’s always a voice on the end of the line

that never matches

the person who strolls up to

the Korean made car window

after making me wait

A woman showed up

I had seen her before

She was tall and thin

Long expensive hair

And a leather jacket

somewhere between

rusted chain link

and towering brick apartment

buildings

There were shots fired

Just before

her hand met mine

“Oh shit”

she turned and walked off

my salvation

walked off with her

my inert wad of 20s

wrapped tight in my drunken fingers

my friend

his first full night here in Jersey

turned on the car

and

over the din

of city cop SUV sirens

 I said

“No

let’s stay”

---

Luke Kuzmish is a new father, recovering addict, software developer, and writer from Erie, Pennsylvania. His poetry has been featured by Beatnik Cowboy, Transcendent Zero Press, Ink Sweat and Tears, and Alien Buddha Press. His latest collection, ‘Hurry Up Wagon,’ was published by Poets’ Hall Press in July 2019.