Cynthia Cruz

SELF-PORTRAIT IN LANDSCAPE WITH FELT PUPPET

Chestnut hair pulled back
with red velvet bow, in black
poly sheath top.

Holding
the ochre felt puppet—
mother’s mother made her—
in my two bare hands.

What is the smoldering,
the goldening
cold at the bottom.

When did I first
enter the sleeve
of this body.

I can’t count, I can’t
cognize. What the body won’t
hold, and the mind.

The mind. A child’s
cerebrum, if it receives
a blow, its cognition
will break down.

On the test
I scored
dead.

Child’s mind, baby’s
mind,

there are some things

that can’t
be fixed.

CYNTHIA CRUZ is the author of six collections of poems, most recently Guidebooks for the Dead (Four Way). Disquieting: Essays on Silence, a collection of critical essays exploring the concept of silence as a form of resistance, was published by Book*hug. Her second collection of critical essays is the newly published The Melancholia of Class: A Manifesto for the Working Class (Repeater Books). Cruz co-edits the multi-disciplinary online journal Schlag.