Poetry by Ashley D. Escobar

RANDOM YOUNG WRITER

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I don’t put my
blanket over my lap. My legs
have already frozen.

Landing is always a
twenty-minute affair. My flight
ends prematurely.

Streetlamps
linger I wonder
where two children went.

Imprints of
hockey sticks. Buried
under fresh snow.

Signs flash.
Warnings of black ice. I know
it will melt into blue.

As covered pools
find their face at the
False end of false spring.

As little fires
meet childhood bedrooms. Their
fathers on their way to work.

I watch it all—
things that have floated and
flailed. Angels, lacewings,

Nightingales — Everything.
Rising, falling, I know
I will have to get up.

Will he turn
onto the highway? I know
I will have to grow up.

I catch a glimpse of
Lake Michigan—

Though she does not
look up at me.

---

Ashley D. Escobar examines human connection and solitude at Bennington College. She is the author of the chapbook SOMETIMES (Invisible Hand Press, 2021) and co-editor-in-chief of Wind-up Mice. Her work can be found in The London Magazine, Expat Press, Ethel Zine, and elsewhere. Find her infrequently on Twitter @quinoa_cowboy.

Photo by Austin Wehrwein on Unsplash