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#1
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POETRY
May 2021
cheryl dumesnil
on the fourth day, make a wish
Remind me who I am,
I asked the owner of the sky.
She showed me a rose
formed by cracks in the asphalt.
No, like that, I pointed
to the snowy egret gliding
inches above the still
lake mirroring her grace.
I gave you a rose, she said,
folding her perfect blue wings.
because I know how to carry a flame
Sepia, jaundice, no—
bathwater after
the last dusty child
has been lifted
and wrapped.
A meteorologist
drags her pen
across the stratum:
smoke layer, fog,
smoke, cloud layer,
more smoke—
and it gets harder
to imagine
robin’s egg,
Wedgewood,
iris, sea glass,
the nose of a plane
pushing out
above the gloom.
My eyes—who
insist they know
something about
time—ache
with the effort
to draw in
noon’s light.
If depression
were a color . . .
Cornea, macula,
retina, lens.
How much longer
can this last?
Even the headlines
are dealing in
rhyme: foreboding,
orange, smoke-
choked skies.
I study the candle
flickering on my desk—
black wick anchoring
its tiny sun,
like a thumbtack
skewers memory
to a map. I will
my body to welcome
its glow, to carry
that shimmer
in my cells—for as
long as it takes—
as I did you, Love,
all those years
you were gone.
CHERYL DUMESNIL's books include the poetry collections Showtime at the Ministry of Lost Causes and In Praise of Falling (University of Pittsburgh Press), the memoir Love Song for Baby X (Ig Publications), and the anthology Dorothy Parker’s Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos (Grand Central), co-edited with Kim Addonizio. A ghostwriter, editor, and writing coach, she lives in Northern California with two teenagers and her wife, Sarah. WEBSITE.
KALE CHESNEY is a queer photographer and designer living in Portland, Oregon. A visual storyteller, they received a BA from University of Santa Cruz in Printmaking and Photography. They grew up in the country, collect cameras, and avoid cilantro at all cost. WEBSITE. INSTAGRAM.
(Image credits: Kale Chesney, by kind permission of the artist.)