Breadcrumbs

JULIA EDWARDS

My body is an inlet
in a ripple
I tie up my shadow
to the nearest docked neighbor

On a bright day
I’m a droplet gone rogue
refracting a child in yellow boots
picking up a shell
helloing without echo

I help myself
to the laws of physics
I help you
walk the dog, unpack boxes
wearing a raincoat inside, I wade

While the world moves around
in my apartment
I am America’s greatest
whirlpool in the light spot
Kibble glistens from the rug

The heaviness of the sun
will crush us but love
is still the boy
on the burning deck
trying to recite "The boy stood
on the burning deck"
You know the one

I borrow a line
of salt blown out through the nose
of a bigger whale
This is what I mean by landscape
A sea monster I can't pronounce
rolling up at the edges with references
I don't know anything about
that footnote / the epic / your
ghosts / those sirens

but I hear them
from the street running
with expiring meat
while I tread the Mediterranean
a foreign couple
on a poop emoji passes by
holding hands through the current
I want to make someone cry

The world is ending & I'm nearsighted
I throw an iris
perpendicular to the end
of the earth’s rotation
It throws back
a wet rope / some kids
eating sandwiches /
a watering can /
broken vanity mirror floats

The night zips up its jeans &
hello, I am your born again water
unresponsive to the tide
when the moon calls

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