Four Poems by Ashley Escobar

“What in the Lady Bird happened to your arm”

oh the drama of having

       too many phones

Kaya reaches into her bag
for the seventeenth time in the snow

shelter in sailor  expectations

   by belle & sebastian

                                                           on the stereo

my heart
in my espresso

  fingers  burst

animal cracker frostbite

                                 striped pants & checkered dress

 along the white hills

the river  

                speaks

                                                             like a sunrise

loops
  & circles   & dots

& ducks

              & duck rabbits

time    

                                                        the only thing I can lose

January 5th

Sleepwalking
to the library

My last party
girl shift. Wonder

if the kids even
remember me

Still digesting
your answers

to the Proust questionnaire
I forget who died

first. Beauvoir or Sartre
I visited Cor​​ázar’s grave

but you’ve been to his home
how do I meet people

in real life when I dream
half of the time

I noticed you
on the walk from poetry

church to 12th Street
Ale House. Every bar I have

in my back pocket is a date
spot. Except San Francisco

and maybe L.A.
I drank alone

and told some mechanics
I wrote for Bill Maher

because I was bored
but I no longer lie

Hop into a cab
before nothing in the city

is analog. Mourning my
half-priced metro card

Meet a friend for coffee
before work. The inexactness

of meeting around one. I was too
drunk to remember all

your answers but the feeling
loiters on a busy intersection

on West 4th Street
a street I once loved

then loathed. Now beginning
to love again. California

is reinvention. But New York
City is a spiral

Yes. You can cheers
with to-go cups of coffee

Trees still bare. Maybe you’ll
be a platypus in your next life

A man with a stack of
newspapers sits across

from me. So it’s time
for me to go clock in

Bob’s your uncle
but am I your friend.

Florida in Monochrome

I catch my breath in
bed. Do you pass
the diner vibe check
Coffee is the preferred
drink of the revolution
Dreaming of all night
cafés. It’s startling
to remember how
passive someone can be
The figures across me
Both on their silly
telephones. I butter my
toast and realize I’ve
always been elsewhere
Among the visceral
realists, in a Hudson
Commodore. Trick
question when I ask
if Sal is Neal Cassady
and my coworker answers
yes. Retracing their steps
unintentionally. Mexico
City is next. Where’s
the spontaneity
Same film poster on
all my rented walls
Wool coat on the beach
Straw hat for redemption
or forgiveness. Motel
room alone. Loneliness
is a permanent vacation
Dude, I’m beat but I’ll meet

                                             you

                at our back booth forever.

1/6/25

The word of the day
is inescapable

               like you entering
               my dreams

I’ve moved nine times
before I turned twenty

 but I’ve never had
 to assemble my own

bed. Here comes
the wintery mix

               Kinda absurd
               that Dog Man is a dog

sewed onto a cops’s body.
I guess that’s what going

to school feels like.



Ashley D. Escobar is a literary angel born and raised in San Francisco, residing in New York City. Eileen Myles selected her debut poetry collection GLIB (2025) as the Changes Book Prize winner. She is a high school dropout who graduated from Bennington College and holds an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. She is working on a novel.