Connie Post

Connie Post
served as Poet Laureate of Livermore, California (2005 to 2009). Her work has appeared in Calyx, One, River Styx, Slipstream, Spoon River Poetry Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review and Verse Daily. Her Awards include the 2018 Liakoura Award the 2016 Crab Creek Review Poetry Award. Her first full length Book “Floodwater” (Glass Lyre Press 2014) won the Lyrebird Award.  Her second Full Length Collection Prime Meridian “ was released in January 2020.  About this book , Juan Herrera says “we need this wisdom book, clear elixir from the source”

It’s a BOY! Duchess of Cambridge gives birth to healthy baby and future King weighing 8lb 6oz at 4.24pm

         The Daily Mail July 22, 2013

Does a mother remember
the weight of her baby
the rest of her life

eight pounds 6 ounces
you tell strangers in the store
when they say
“Oh he’s a healthy boy”
and you agree as you tell them
his birth weight

you say it over and over
as if it’s the most normal thing to say

even later, when the doctors ask
about the birth
about his weight
about his not talking

even twenty seven years later
when a future King is born
who weighs the same

you say it to yourself
and feel the weight of the baby chair
as you carried it from doctor’s office
to doctor’s office

until you finally have a diagnosis
until you can finally say “autism”
and not think of anything else
except for that first weight
the gravity of eight pounds
six ounces
the hopes of a young mother
in a vast country

wandering around
trying to make sense
of beginnings                                                                                

 

Day’s decree

All morning I thought you had died

You didn’t answer your phone,
your room was silent
your shades were drawn

All morning
I pushed the same thoughts away,
wondered why
all the cross walks
on the road driving away from you
disappeared

I looked for stop signs
but everyone sped past me
as if there was no reason to pause

All morning
I pushed away the dream
I had last week
when you died, again–
the siren lights quiet
on a cleaved night
turning
turning
incessantly.
the same ambulance driver
missing arms
his image fading into the seat

finally, the end of day comes
my keys fit into the door like a deep breath
I find you typing a term paper in your room

all night
you tell me I worry too much  –
that know where the crosswalks are

but you do not pull police tape
from the inside of your brain each morning

you know the difference 
between sirens near, or far away
you know how
how to climb out of your own body
how to emerge
absolved