Ashleigh Young
In the Square
I sit in the Square before I go a machine
is trumpeting false snow here
but it looks true I am in the kind of country
where shoes leave black holes where heads leave mist
where lungs dry out like money
if you’re with no one you’re less
than exhaust
my brother is turning thirty today
I am frisking the lid off the neck
of the bottle I got him
when a
greyhound glides by like a sled trailing kids
this drink tastes of rope-burned hands
a woman’s jacket huffs itself into a zorb
and when I
stand the ashes of pigeons
rise around
me I am in the Square before the party
in which my brother is turning thirty
and I am already feeling up my pockets for my number
for all the girls will be holding smoke in their
mouths
waiting for a
good face to blow it in and all the boys
will surely be as pretty as the lizard Bowie
and those with bullets in their chins
will walk off while I’m still talking to them like I’m just
the bike they
got there on good news: I don’t need
to tell my feelings when I drink any more all the hooks
and worms I’ve ever eaten passed through me years ago
when I was thirty they came out shining
I face my hands who listen mouths slightly parted, preening
my brother’s
guitar will be starting soon I was always the first one
to see the waves could hear them driving
to meet us at the corner at the first note he sings
or
just after I’ll recall the song or think I do
and even though he was born in water
and I was born in a bed I expect that upon entering the room
the crowd will step back to let me through
I will remove my hat my gloves, coat, shoes
I will remove my head, feet, hands lightening myself to ease the ascent
up the silent cliff to my brother first goes my breath, first I
pull
hard on my heavy breath
