Three Poems by Connie Post

Maps

I no longer want
Google map directions

I want to stop at a local gas station
where the people know
how to get somewhere

I will buy a cold root beer
where the soda slightly spills out
the top of the lid

I want someone to understand
the loss of my tire pressure
and for someone to understand
that I’ve forgotten how
to pop the hood

I want the attendant
to tell me why the road
washed out last year

when I search for the money
to pay for my drink and Fritos

I want them to wait a long time
until my purse is an open cavern

I want them to see how long
I can stand there as a half shadow

I want them to see
there is a drought in my mouth

mostly
I want someone to know I’m lost

*

My Body is a Content Warning

The papers and files
are all boxed up

nobody wants to read my bones

these fractures didn’t just happen
overnight

nobody is willing to
sit with my marrow
in a room filled with
crumpled police tape

there is an empty can of mace
in my sleeve

I’ve never used it

all my offenders know me

the only stranger danger is
is my shadow self
sitting on the chair in my room

my body is surrounded
by the weeds of childhood

how many times must
I be told to take better care of myself

how many times
must I cauterize my subconscious

how many times
do I have to remind myself
that my memory
is an untreated hemophiliac

I don’t know how many more ways
to sacrifice this body

the gods are hungry

*

Sleeping With the Light On

You didn’t mean to
but you were too tired

maybe you took one pill too many

maybe daylight savings time
wanted you to exile yourself

most likely though

you didn’t want to find another
curtain in the dark

where the fibers hang like long strands
of your remaining sanity

they were hung
with the crippled hands of a mad man

the curtains
are a tripping hazard
they hang just low enough
to force you to feel
the partial existence
of your makeshift life

as dawn arrives
you erase the word “rape”
from a piece of crumpled paper
by the side of your bed

you get up early
and go to the department store
about ten miles away

you walk around
finding mannequins
that emulate the very expression
you had
when he found you

*

Connie Post served as Poet Laureate of Livermore, California (2005-2009). Her work has appeared in Calyx, Cutthroat, River Styx, Slipstream, Spoon River Poetry Review, & Valparaiso Poetry Review. Her awards include the Crab Creek Poetry Prize, Liakoura Award and the Caesura Poetry Award. Her second full length book, “Prime Meridian” was released in January 2020 (Glass Lyre Press) and was a finalist for the 2020 Best Book Awards. Her most recent books are Between Twilight from New York Quarterly Books and Broken Metronome from Glass Lyre Press. Broken Metronome was the winner of the American Fiction Award for poetry chapbook.