after Denis Johnson after Vladimir Mayakovsky

It’s after one. You’re probably no longer
alive. All night the night rings like a sun
in the tollbooth of our foreverness. Now is the hour
one is undone. Hello my darling, my king, my delicate
animal. I am undone. Like a dream from a gold jewel box,
spilling with wet white pearls of animal
tenderness, this dream that was my life
will have its witnesses, while the ocean lies
in its tremendous blue bed and sorry
in its turbulence of stars.
Now is the hour one speaks
to the patterns of un-revolving
history and universe. I swear you will never
hear my voice again.

Cynthia Cruz’s most recent collection of poems, Hotel Oblivion, was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the European Graduate School.

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