early September
and the day was breathing out the last
of summer’s unimportant failures
and a bird dropped, suddenly, from the sky;
it looked like the shadow of a tiny parachutist
a man jumped on the bus and asked
if anyone could split a twenty
for two tens; we’re all skint
a girl shouted into the silence;
the laughter rippling down the bus
sounded like paper being squashed down
into a wastebin
* Andrew McMillan
was born in 1988. His work has appeared online and in print in places
such as The London Magazine and The North. A debut pamphlet every salt advance was published in October 2009 and a second pamphlet is due in October 2011, both from Red Squirrel Press.
