Good Again

After ‘Convergence’, 1952 Jackson Pollock

In this painting, we implicate the night; moon appears over windowed cat,
over all of the sheets tangled, limbs struggling to puzzle-piece themselves together.

The corners of your mattress crawl inwards, to the promise
of a Pollock, a splatter of lungs black—red, then white.

I refuse to paint you anything other than a pair of disembodied fingers,
dis-wristed, unwristed, unsettled.

Formication under chest until the heart beats until it quivers.
Beneath, the promise of a poem refusing to be written.

The limbs squirm as if dancing, as if trying to remember how to be good again.
As if being good again disembodies the weeping or the wounded. As if.

Arrested by light—yellow, then white. Arriving, arroyo pocked dimples
on pillowcase, slipping out to tear or tear through the night.

In this painting, we implicate. We arroyo wet in desert. Arrested in refusal of
a body, or any body, of anybody as if splattered or squirming. As if we’re good again.

Margarita Cruz received her MFA in Creative Writing from Northern Arizona University. She is currently a columnist for Flagstaff Live! and an assistant editor at Tolsun Books. Her works have been featured in PANK, DIAGRAM, and the New Delta Review among others. Find more of her at shortendings.com.