LAUREN CAMP
Reckoning
When it became clear the world
would continue—others would cull, cook, drive
nails, run serum to veins, spray weeds,
peel and measure, trawl and scrape,
would blast and repair
broken bridges—while I was a mess
of exhaustion, I left. Right out of it. Came three days
indirect to where fish circuit in silence
for a long time in the pond. Birds skate
leaves, getting fat on fruit. The fish shift. I am lucky
to watch them. All that exists is the rapture
of turning. Or rather, hours not
rushing. The light pitches the same field I
hiked in. I lie into it, feel the soft give where
my feet make their shape. Empty doesn’t have to be
a loss. Maybe a simple form
of beginning. Above, the greedy raptors
circle and drift. Nothing between us
but dandelions leaping
on their long stems.
Fractions
We worked in dry air, we woke, leaned again
forward. Dry air always numb across us. Even through vigor
of storm and the later lapsed cavil of elm leaves. Mornings
without variation, I’d listen to the flux and universe
of a barred owl moaning his moods. See first a frame
of branches then the reckon of blue. All this
where I’ve left, where I’ve yielded decisions
to mountains, my place ruled by wheel and a fleet pose
of courageous retellings. Presently I’m spun to a salt-line.
Craned to each wave and the teeth
of tall cedars. Air burnished with drips, without each pulse
and fold of wound wind. Let me put myself firm here.
Let me innumerable fog. The air yawns its gauze. Let me compassion
every shore and each rivering window. Afternoon
downpour. I want the names for the myths of the ocean
and the basis for how it wanders
and wanes. The map, though not all trembling
water, can be how I witness. We’ve been through more
than we haven’t, my love, and our lives are blown (or resolved)
to a road that runs in no careful
directions. Of course, I’ll remember that a hollow
can take me to pieces, but let me harbor the days remaining
in front of me. Radiant directions.
Your body: I will return to it. The sail and the rudder.
A desire. Its constant voice splits my ghosts.
Lauren Camp is the author of five volumes of poetry, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Pleiades, Poet Lore, Slice, DIAGRAM, and other journals. Winner of the Dorset Prize, Lauren has also received fellowships from The Black Earth Institute and The Taft-Nicholson Center, and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award, the Housatonic Book Award, and the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award.