Poems

It moves like the small jolt

of a stall—a too-quick-clutch-and-not-enough-gas-why-can’t-I-do-this

stall.

The final lurch puffs a tease

of what the heater had to offer;

the fan’s laugh dies while

the engine halts—grumpy, haughty, finicky clunk.

Release the necessary

Expletivesighscream.
(Turn the key.)

***

A trick of the light—
sunlight pierces windowpane to ask

who's that, who’s there?

A trick of the light—
infinitely varied:
conceived, conceiving, receding;

stepping, stopped,

bounding, crashing, falling,

bloated, flat, skinned, skinless, bone, ash.

A trick of the light—

moments from darkness and silence,

decisions and truths hashed and rehashed

declare themselves unknowable.

A trick of the light—
composition: elusive, location: nonexistent/miscellaneous, center: uncentered;

written in stone is only their reality, their relation:

mother, daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, friend.

A trick of the light—
sunlight pierces windowpane to ask

who's that, who’s there?

A trick of the light—

In the fading sun, declare me

unknown, unknowable, unseeable, intangible, invisible:

translucent.

***

Strange Gospels by Cynthia Cruz from The Glimmering Room

Woke in a drool of ribbons and spit.

Lace lost someplace on the body.

Call Billy collect

Off the side of the highway.

And I will

Wait in girlhood

Panties and Billy's black

Leather lace ups

In this glass phone booth

Forever.