Connie Post

Bound To Repeat It

There are atrocities in the body
millions of skin cells
sloughing off every moment

we start
by losing our amniotic lives
leaving the placenta behind
falling into and out of
this oxygenated existence

we exile ourselves
from the connective tissue
of our worn selves
we turn away from
the genocide of blocked arteries

our voices
fall out of us
into a thousand
shallow rooms

we brush our teeth at night
scraping away enamel
as if it will return

we turn down the bed
lose another strand of hair
never notice the mass graves
beneath our skin

we purge ourselves of all light
when the day is over
we forget our names
when we sleep
– enter the mitosis
of dreams

we ignore the bones
thinning

never recognizing
how small colonies
of tissue
are lost
without a sound

Connie Post served as Poet Laureate of Livermore, California (2005-2009). Her work has appeared in Calyx, Cutthroat, River Styx, Comstock Review, Slipstream, Spoon River Poetry Review, & Valparaiso Poetry Review. Her awards include the 2018 Liakoura Award, the 2016 Crab Creek Poetry Prize and the Caesura Poetry Award. Her first full length manuscript “Floodwater” was published in January 2014 by Glass Lyre Press was awarded the Lyrebird Book 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.

… return to 2021 Poetry Contest Issue Table of Contents.