Charity Balls
By Cynthia Cruz
After John Wieners
I had a fellowship but lived poorly
On cheap beer and penny candy.
Later, a career of killing time.
But I have always been
Shamelessly without guile.
It’s a question of acquiring
Money without the inheritance of chainmail.
At the age of five, I thought I would never
Amount to anything. It was not until
The age of thirty-eight that I knew
It to be true. Old shapes and evenings
With the peasant of bruising sorrow,
His rooms of cigarettes and ash, chalk-
Blue carnations in his long, blonde hair.
In the rooms of this city where I was born,
A ribbon around my waist, he began telling me
About my writing and his mother’s
Sex life. I’m obsessional by nature,
Hysterical and childish and a liar.
But I always knew if I were born
Again, even then, I would never
Survive.
Notes:
Cynthia Cruz, "Charity Balls (I had a fellowship but lived poorly/On cheap beer and penny candy),” from Sweet Repetition. © 2025 by The University of Chicago. Reprinted by permission of the University of Chicago Press. All rights reserved.
Source: Poetry (October 2025)