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  • The Paris Review

    Two Poems by Cynthia Cruz

    Jun 15, 2019 1 minute

    FRAGMENT

    I would like this poemto be a machine.Concise, metallic,a counting apparatus.A means to keep each momentcontained and fixed, akinto a series of Polaroids,photographed and fixedto cardboard or some otherpaper-panel backing.Then photographed and affixedwith Scotch tape to the wall.Or, a vitrine, a glass case,within which to gather and collecteach moment, each objectrepresenting each moment.A bundle, assemblage, or archiveconstructed of letters and notes,diary entries and fragments,articles and photographstorn from books.A machine that measuresthe space betweenthe body and the mind,the dissonance that existsinside that moment. And there,in that static, in the rip,the mar, the errorbetween, is where,when it begins, it willbegin.

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