In Praise of Falling
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About this ebook
Cheryl Dumesnil
Cheryl Dumesnil’s books include two collection of poems, Showtime at the Ministry of Lost Causes and In Praise of Falling (winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize and the Golden Crown Literary Society Prize for Poetry); a memoir, Love Song for Baby X: How I Stayed (Almost) Sane on the Rocky Road to Parenthood; and the anthology Dorothy Parker’s Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos, coedited with Kim Addonizio. Her stint as a solo mom ended in 2017 when she married her soul mate, Sarah, a.k.a. the Best Stepparent in the World.
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In Praise of Falling - Cheryl Dumesnil
2008 AGNES LYNCH STARRETT PRIZE
PITT POETRY SERIES
ED OCHESTER, EDITOR
IN PRAISE OF FALLING
CHERYL DUMESNIL
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH PRESS
Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260
Copyright © 2009, Cheryl Dumesnil
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN 13: 978-0-8229-6041-6
ISBN 10: 0-8229-6041-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-8229-7828-2 (electronic)
FOR
TRACIE
Fall down seven times, get up eight.
Zen Proverb
Contents
I. Theories
It's not Armageddon
Atlantis
Don't Miss It
Bernal Heights
A Soldier's Home, Hughes, Arkansas, 1970
Theories
Prayer for Sleep
American Robin
Teaching Luca Mr. Potato Head
On the first day of class
Moon, Jacket, Yellow, Tree, Violin
II. Changing Room
The Storyteller's Daughter
Killing
The Amnesiac, Seventh Grade
Chosen
Stars
The Hill
Clarissa's Great Aunt
Changing Room
Triangle Tattoo
Hard Labor
III. Somewhere in a Box Marked Keep
Foundling
Nightmare Predicting Change
Recurring
Junk Shop Magic
True
Afterbirth
Somewhere in a Box Marked Keep
Other Nights
Revisited
Narrative
IV. Say Yes
In Praise of Falling
Meteorology
The Swimmer
Wetlands
Don't Ask Me
When
If
Q to the 6 Train
Creature
Dark Magic
Getting It Right This Time
Say Yes
Acknowledgments
I
THEORIES
It's not Armageddon
spreading amber fog from north to south
across the September sky. And no, that's not
a metaphor for depression, or the slow death
of love. Not even with its signature reference
to the season of falling leaves. It's just smoke
from a brush fire two hundred miles away,
staining sunlight the color of white sheets
soaked in a rusty bin. It's just a minor fuckup—
a guy in his yard burning leaves, a spark
from a gas-powered mower, that Old Crow bottle
smashed in a dry field, finally finding its flame—
with a consequence writ large enough
for satellites to photograph from space. It's just
ash dusting the parking lot, like dandruff
brushed from the shoulder of an itchy god.
Atlantis
Rush hour, leaving the last
downtown station, our train
descends under San Francisco Bay
and I imagine we are
Atlantis sinking, this populous
of stockbrokers snapping
evening papers, file clerks
lacing sneakers onto