JULIA EDWARDS
University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Alpine Dam 

 My friend asks if everyone I know is depressed
as we walk in the forest near the dam. Some cheery 
male cyclists interrupt — it’s time, they say, 
 
for a photo and now, one of you, they grin and we 
pose with their red bikes, stream idling behind.
What a wonderful day, says a long-haired hippie 
 
reading down by the lake like a ghost I met years 
ago when I came here to get high, grow small 
against the moss of this massive water barrier. 
 
My friend, a farmer, pulls roots out with her co-
workers all day. People are interesting, she says, 
it turns out. In college we painted cryptic blood
 
notes on the walls, post-verbal rituals, blades and 
alcohol and yet we talk so much I forget to look 
around, walking for miles, physical space changing 
 
our expressions, like with crops, she says. It’s not just
about climate but where we grow them. We forget 
that part and I resist the urge to write this in my 
 
phone, the way the small screen forces quicker
returns but I pull it out, suddenly late. I tell the ghost 
yes, it is beautiful and we can only think of one 
 
friend who is depressed right now and because 
I see its expanse — in my hair, on the windshield, 
at the bridge — I cannot think about the sun 
 
and how it cuts itself off. Maybe I am in awe, 
like a child on a swing held upwards by a mother. 
It is easier here to forget myself, so easy 
 
I long for gravity to let me down. O, dam, 
let me fall like a highlight through your face, 
so clear and golden it will feel like cascade. 
 

A god of smaller questions

 I scrub myself thin so you can find me
new as when you left. Wintered, I sleep
 
with one ear to the pillow, my gentler skin
untarnished by cover. It would be wrong
 
to ask what I want when the answer is large
as yellowing weather –– I want to be twenty-
 
nine forever, before the decade of sinking
mud, its slits in the curb I slide unread
 
letters through. Subtracting myself enough
to warrant your return, I beg to a god of lesser
 
questions, make me a bar of soap before
the imprint, fight tomorrow like reversal
 
will present simpler options. I ask for you
back in your grown moments, when you
 
pushed the straps of my backpack over
both my shoulders –– a small attempt
 
to hold us in place against the hours,
but recklessness won –– you left behind
 
the doors of dawn. My contents spill
out from unzipped teeth: wallet, keys,
 
gum stuck to the lining. Today, it’s 81
degrees in late October, where golden
 
leaves can’t reach you. I am telling a story
of my grief to a god who already knows
 
my revelation, while flames rise like
cardinals too red for this planet. I keep
 
myself small so as not to break faith
while you grow into a man under my feet.

Julia Edwards is a poet from New York. Her work has appeared in Bat City Review, Brooklyn Magazine, Breadcrumbs Mag, among others. She holds an MFA in poetry at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, where she served as poetry editor for The Greensboro Review.