In Praise of Falling

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