Poem: The First One Over


The First One Over

I do not know the name
of the cat that was the first
to go over Niagara falls
in a barrel, as a test
for Annie Edson Taylor,
the first human to do
the same.
The barrel, which
Taylor had prepared,
wasn’t all that special
aside from a mattress
and an anvil for ballast, but the cat was,
beside a bloody head, fine, so Annie went
down too.
Annie, who chose the feat herself,
a way towards fame and, if not fortune,
security, was unscathed, but warned others
against the effort, said of a repeat performance:
“I would sooner walk up to the mouth
of a cannon…” There is, of course, no record
of the cat’s opinions.

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