Cynthia Cruz

Hotel Letters

But strangeness
was always a part
of the story.
A rip in the frame, an ink stain
or mar. Always, I was
almost, or maybe.
The endless hope of possibility.
En route to the agency, or the dealer’s
I stopped by Adam’s and begged him.
Please, I said, help me.
You are, he said, the most beautiful.
But, also, stupid, and wild,
part animal. Near the Pacific, after classes,
in the late afternoon.
Without words and filled, entirely
with music. Later, I spent years
looking, but never finding,
what it was he said
was good and worthwhile inside me.

Cynthia Cruz is the author of four collections of poetry, including three with Four Way Books: The Glimmering Room (2012), Wunderkammer (2014), and How the End Begins (2016). Cruz has received fellowships from Yaddo and the Macdowell Colony as well as a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University. She has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College in writing and an MFA in Art Criticism & Writing from the School of Visual Arts. Cruz is currently pursuing a PhD in German Studies at Rutgers University. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.