Ammonite. Poems by Abe Louise Young
36 pages, letterpress cover, hand-bound, $12
ISBN: 0979608201
Publication Date: 2010

Little Big Bang

God was One, then got lonely
& wanted to know Herself,
so s/he split
into the Big Bang,
scattered everywhere
in a billion bits, made love
with Kali & Uranus,
became grasshoppers & dinosaurs,
plastic & cancer cells,
dogs & dogshit,
s/he evolved & moved through
every living thing, & then
went around asking,
“Are you me?” “Are you me?”
When s/he asked this morning,
though I felt
like a wretched mess,
I had to answer truthfully:
Yes, Mother, yes.

First Time

I anticipate each handful of sand.
The sky rolls slow & a crow flies over.
Flapping wings sound like walking in new stockings, thighs
chafing together. Two girls squat & build a hill of sand
over my body, up to my chin; joy twists my face
and I squint to conceal it. I feel like a glass
of frothy milk drained empty by a straw.
Smooth the sloping sides. Far away, adults play cards
under pie-shaped umbrellas. Heart pounding in a dark
cave. Breathing comes cooler, belabored. Sand falls
from a few inches above, pads the length of my limbs
in a thick layer. Soft rain. Tiny mites & broken shell.
I feel my vulva; hot, anchoring. My body is built here:
my pelvic bone, my thighs with their columns of muscle,
my almost-breasts, my collarbone, my hair spread out
in a fan, my feet ticklish, hands pressed to my sides.
Under attention without end, their fingers grasping &
measuring handfuls, bringing it to me.  Surrender. An altar.
Center. I lie in their touch entire. I lie there until I forget,
fall asleep, wake up with a burned head. Porous
to the sound of water. I lie there in hunger and shame
for ten years until I rest under the weight of another body
whose volume equals mine, whose bones float & balance
at the axis of my pelvis, whose breasts flatten against me,
whose skin radiates heat, who touches my toes
with roughened feet, who runs fingers over my ribs,
along my legs with a fine salty grain. I float
on the voices of girls, the sky filling my lungs; I float
touched & isolate until they are done, until they are
done, & want to do someone else.

Abe Louise Young was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.  She is an award-winning poet and journalist, known for her efforts to chronicle and publish forgotten voices, from Holocaust survivors to Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Her published poems and articles have appeared in such venues as the Nation and New Letters, and she's the editor of one anthology, Hip Deep: Opinion, Essay, and Vision from American Teenagers (Next Generation Press, 2006). She lives in Austin, Texas and travels nationally to lead writing circles for social change with youth.

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