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Connie Post: Estrangement     

It’s not like it happens
suddenly
you step off a curb
agree to take a little time away

maybe take a trip to another city

you look out the window of the bus
as the streets pass by 

a few weeks go by
a small building collapses

then it’s months
and a road buckles 
and the signs reroute you
to a small town 

a metal bridge sways
in the distance
you are not sure you can cross it again

you live in your house
made of clay and sin

every day
the river runs higher to the
underside of the bridge

and soon
twenty years of silence
has passed 

you watch a burning city
from far away
and notice a pigeon flying towards you
gaining speed
pulling the sky’s edges with it

finally landing 
carrying its message
to an unmarked grave

(c) Connie Post. From Between Twilight (NYQ, 2023).

Connie Post served as the first Poet Laureate of Livermore, California. Her full-length collections from Glass Lyre Press are Floodwater and Prime Meridian.

Old, narrow steel bridge, closed as of the date of this image in Burnsville, West Virginia (Library of Congress)

5 comments on “Connie Post: Estrangement     

  1. Michael McLaughlin
    May 25, 2023

    Fresh, new, heartfelt, painful. And more. My favorite (already) poem of yours.

    Like

  2. Barbara Huntington
    May 22, 2023

    This is the way of now. This is how it all seems to be step and illness, move. Fall back, accept, wonder.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. bigchenillemitt
    May 22, 2023

    Connie, another startling, entrancing poem. Your gift with the dual simple/complex power of lines continues to amaze.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Bosselaar Laure-Anne
    May 22, 2023

    I love this one: the completely unexpected images, that pigeon pulling the shy’s edges with it! SO good!

    Liked by 1 person

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This entry was posted on May 22, 2023 by in Health and Nutrition, Poetry and tagged , , , , .

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