Two Poems | Julie Oldbury

Daydream

If I am going to be a poet
I had better stop chatting with
the homeless fellow
at the Shell station on the
corner.
I had better pour my coffee
into the most insulated of all the metal
cups
with the most securely sealed lid
engineered, credentialed
so that
I don’t spill any coffee in the car and
I had better not dream
too big before I
decide to move on and
forget myself
I had better not scream
about it and wake myself up

Canopy

The bus will take you to a place
where you have been before
but cannot seem to find.
Where the leaves are starting to turn
and the cool breeze herself
tumbles down the mountain
wearing a yellow turtleneck.
Dancing across the road,
she approaches to give you
the most amazing gift:
the color orange.
Twist it between your fingers
turn it red, against your heart
like when you were a kid
hands flung out the window
cold air rushing between each finger
soft fleece on your skin.
When you become a tree,
how tall will you be?
She asks, gently
swirling beneath the canopy
admiring the blue sky.
When you become a tree,
what will you teach me?
Smiling, she bends her arms
back in time, fluttering
at the edge of the sun
curling up into a memory
dotted with warm light.

Julie Oldbury is a writer, musician, and corporate boss bitch living in Denver, Colorado. She studied English and Creative Writing (Non-fiction and Poetry) and Visual Art at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. While an undergrad, Julie’s literary thesis explored connections between modernism, abstraction, and gender across the works of Virginia Woolf and Pablo Picasso. She was an editor of the student publication, Medium Weight Forks and a promotions employee of the NWMSU Visiting Writers Series. She earned a graduate degree in business from the University of Houston and currently works in the data insights and security software industry as a part of the Denver and Boulder tech community. Upon moving to Colorado in 2018, Julie rediscovered her excitement and passion for writing poetry. Inspired by her surroundings, her growing relationships, and the global landscape, Julie is in the process of compiling her first body of poetry and is actively seeking to publish her work in independent and avante-garde journals.