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We were of the West
African trees and grasses: the orchid, the flame, the quiver.
In the Nocturama of
Wild javelina, cheetah, and gazelle, we stopped
The clock for dusk. Freezing
Little Tundra, Tiny
Ice Age. Gray-crowned
Crane, with wings extended: the wool
Of your boyhood cast about your bare shoulders.
Beneath the canopy of egrets,
You slept,
Dreaming of the sea: a great ocean-
Liner, and the ripping of wind
Against the latched wing of the ship’s portal.
Cynthia Cruz’s work has appeared in or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. Her first book, Ruin, was published in 2006. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and the Juilliard School.
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