Star in the Throat, Fire in the Cupboard by Catie Rosemurgy

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend April 30, 2014   Star in the Throat, Fire in the Cupboard   Catie Rosemurgy

When I was young, I hid under the porch with a star in my throat. When I got a little older, my mother opened the cupboard to let the           fire out. I should’ve known the cliffs meant a coming blankness. We should’ve noticed the competition growing deadly between the           masts and the trees. The problem wasn’t the lateness of our parties but what we used for wood to keep them lit. What is it people say—take my arm and walk with me along the shore      for a minute? My mother, bless her, is a speck of color in the flush of a great cheek. I’ve come to ask you to consider praying for that giant child. Remember when we began to forget the babies once we tossed them in      the air? First it was the completion of those simple gestures, but then entire          sections of the story went missing. In our lips we could feel the slight buzz of the edge where the cut was made. We crawled in and out of those           holes wearing different faces. I believe the stories got wet and began to bleed together. I believe we built the sides of the town too high and the events kept           rolling back. I didn’t know that the water was going to keep rising as well, but if you have any say in the matter, while the boats go down, I’d like to be on a ladder, peeking into a loft made narcotic with children, a dead pool with rolling, living waves. If possible, I’d like the water to douse the match that’s growing out of the bones           of my hand.              Copyright © 2014 by Catie Rosemurgy. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “‘Star in the Throat, Fire in the Cupboard’ is loosely based on events that occurred throughout northern Wisconsin and upper Michigan during the 1800s and early 1900s. The poem comes from a collection about a fictional town in which several conflated and highly-altered historical disasters happen over and over. The town keeps burning, flooding, dwindling, and finally disappearing. This particular poem speculates on how an event (in this case the Peshtigo, Wisconsin, firestorm of 1871—the worst recorded forest fire in United States history) becomes distorted through repetition and retelling.” —Catie Rosemurgy   Catie Rosemurgy’s latest book is The Stranger Manual (Graywolf Press, 2009). She lives in Philadelphia and teaches at The College of New Jersey. Most Recent Book by Rosemurgy   The Stranger Manual (Graywolf Press, 2009) "A group of girls from Minnesota or black mascara" by Maureen Owen "Help Me to Salt, Help Me to Sorrow" by Judy Jordan "forgetting something" by Nick Flynn Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit poets.org   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038