Fragment

Fotografia de Jude Beck

I would like this poem

to be a machine.

Concise, metallic,

a counting apparatus.

A means to keep each moment

contained and fixed, akin

to a series of Polaroids,

photographed and fixed

to cardboard or some other

paper-panel backing.

Then photographed and affixed

with Scotch tape to the wall.

Or, a vitrine, a glass case,

within which to gather and collect

each moment, each object

representing each moment.

A bundle, assemblage, or archive

constructed of letters and notes,

diary entries and fragments,

articles and photographs

torn from books.

A machine that measures

the space between

the body and the mind,

the dissonance that exists

inside that moment. And there,

in that static, in the rip,

the mar, the error

between, is where,

when it begins, it will

begin.

Cynthia Cruz