Hotel Letters

But strangeness
was always a part
of the story.
A rip in the frame, an ink stain
or mar. Always, I was
almost, or maybe.
The endless hope of possibility.
En route to the agency, or the dealer’s
I stopped by Adam’s and begged him.
Please, I said, help me.
You are, he said, the most beautiful.
But, also, stupid, and wild,
part animal. Near the Pacific, after classes,
in the late afternoon.
Without words and filled, entirely
with music. Later, I spent years
looking, but never finding,
what it was he said
was good and worthwhile inside me.

–Cynthia Cruz