Cheryl Dumesnil
This Spring
is my wife’s sweating
nightmares and the man
waiting at the bus stop
with a gas mask strapped
to his face and the green
hillside which is fire
season in the making,
and my neighbor who
reports another break-in
in broad daylight and Is
this the new normal?
the radio asks, and this
spring is empty drug store
shelves where rubbing
alcohol and flu remedies
used to be, and this
spring is Four gallons of
bottled water for every
family member and Don’t
panic and This is not
a drill, and this spring is
furlough and layoff
and non-essential and
voters who don’t think
a woman is electable—
And these are female
voters, the radio says—
and this spring is Next up:
a Bay Area chef
who lives in a camper
with two kids because
she can’t afford rent,
and this spring is the near-
dead fig tree turning
new leaves toward
the sun in a gesture
of forgiveness, which is
in no way an answer, but
still, I stop driving and
look up for a while.
—Submitted on
Cheryl Dumesnil is the author of the poetry collections Showtime at the Ministry of Lost Causes (2016) and In Praise of Falling (2009), both from the University of Pittsburgh Press. She is the author of the memoir Love Song for Baby X (Ig Publishing, 2013). Dumesnil is a co-author of the anthologies We Got This: Solo Mom Stories of Grit, Heart, and Humor (SheWrites Press, 2019) and Dorothy Parker’s Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos (Warner Books, 2002). She lives in Northern California with her two children and her wife, Sarah. Dumesnil blogs at thecrisisdiaries.com. Her website is cheryldumesnil.com.
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