they tell me I am lucky to have people in my life
who can hold me up but if it’s luck why am I braced
against the collars of men in a happy hour bar heaving
towards a bathroom to fall apart in why is David Duke
alive and sweaty in the August sun why is my heart
flooding through all its chambers why am I filled
with extinction when the crowds at the Bernie rally scream
hope why do I still rise for the ambassadors of luck
they tape over my eyes the corpses of ladybugs they throw
me in the river commanding luck to help me float they tell me
to get fat on the year of the pig in two weeks I have lost
seven pounds I am trying to be grateful for what I still have
when I close my eyes there are fires in my head not blazing enough
I see vultures at your grave when I hold bread to my mouth
tell me how I am lucky when it was you they found
in the dirty room and on your street there are people walking around
I’m a coin in the gutter I’m a clock without arms
they tell me the world is my hospital
I’m your bounty of blood going stale on the floor
Julia Edwards is a poet from New York. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Bat City Review, Diode, Hobart, among others. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, where she served as poetry editor for The Greensboro Review.