As the speaker in Cynthia Cruz’s collection, Wunderkammer, moves about her drug-infused world, we get the sense that even in the wilderness, whether woods or sea, she has been confined to a room. These rooms, psychedelically ornate, seem as if their arrangement was left up to someone other than the speaker. They stand as landscapes of addiction, the psychological traumas of the speaker’s past ruling over them, godlike; addiction is her curator, rolling out “endless fluorescent / Green lawns,” bejeweling cabinets, and installing locks at every turn. Despite the depth of the speaker’s afflictions, Cruz handling of imagery, metaphor, and motif shine and shimmer, illuminating for the reader a path toward understanding a mind in deep, dark trouble.
