The numbers change
by the hour
I check the web site
too often
I tell myself not to
watch the news
all the time
I wipe down my counter
instead
after dinner
I find a new graph
on the trajectory of deaths
in my region
I watch the curve spike
and see small images of people
falling off the back
like that scene in
Titanic
when everyone
fell off the ship
some to the ocean
some to the decks below
some plummeting
some holding on
some lonely
when the water
froze their stories in time
I try to sleep
all my meditation songs
fall below my bed
someone is being infected
someone is short of breath
someone remembers a prayer
they said when they were young
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, The Slippery Elm, The Pedestal Magazine, and Verse Daily. Her Awards include the 2018 Liakoura Award the 2016 Crab Creek Review Poetry Award and the Caesura award. Her first full length Book, Floodwater, won the Lyrebird Award. Her second full length book, Prime Meridian, was released January 3, 2020; both published by Glass Lyre Press.
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