Affidavit For my Father by Connie Post

Affidavit For my Father

You were never in the Epstein files
the letters of your name
fell only inside my body

The island you so often frequented
was my room
with its small shelves
and bed partially sunk
in the center

now when I look back
I see scattered paper
and torn envelopes
with a suicide note
never fulfilled

I was the lone reporter
standing there
without a note pad
standing there
with my skirt
half pulled up

I said a quiet goodbye to you
when you went to work each morning
after breakfast you’d go to the driveway
and retrieve the morning paper

but our story was never in the headlines
you died in the same town, twenty-five years
after we stopped talking

all that’s left of my past
is the old flannel night gown
I used to wear as a girl
and my story redacted

like your face blacked out
in a dark room

*

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 and NYC Big book award for a poetry chapbook.