In the interview recorded the night before
His final death, he said he was almost adjacent
To being human. In the basement apartment
My mother tells me
On the long distance telephone
My body is slowly filling with light.
I don’t believe I have ever
Told you that I never
Look at my own face
In the mirror.
The rain outside is starling. It is
The color of the silver
Fur of animal the woman wears
In the story where she becomes
The animal. Last night’s dream
Is entering my body again,
Retroactive like the dream
Between the end and the beginning
Of history, which has yet
To begin. The world, still in its pre-historic
Silver-dawn atmosphere.
In the broken glass of the last
Atmosphere someone finally
Calls out my name. I am
Finally becoming
What I was meant
To become.
Disintegrating what’s left
Of the blonde girl I thought
I was. In the clinic,
Deniz is becoming
Thin from the leukemia. Hello,
He says, Hello.
The last time I saw him,
His delicate and otherworldly
Black and white drawings
Of houses on fire
Taped with Scotch Tape
To the walls
Of his locked bedroom.
Wandering the long locked halls
A child locked inside the body
Of a man locked inside the body
Of a beautiful and lonely child.
Copyright © 2024 by Cynthia Cruz. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 31, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.