Two Poems by Lauren Camp

Dear Instant,

I have never thought to arrive on an indigo motorcycle,
racing for a view. All summer I bathed
between punishment and fury
and took many photos that in winter
will seem flowered with ghosts.
No soft voices comforted. Only down stars.
I could sing but I didn’t. When I walked the beach
I missed all the seals, and instead squinted
at the lost sneakers demanding a meaning.
Blue and red. I didn’t more than wash
and stack my dream that dove repeatedly into the water.
I call time little names and let its head roost
in my palm. Every path wild skeletons emerge
picked clean and silent, they remind me
to solve back to claws and perpetual distance.
Show me my face as a tintype. Make it shine
in a parlor. Show me more than none of
this is a glitter. Of course
my rubber boots make me slip
closer to the clouds and their pink underbelly.
That’s it, I’ve decided:
I will get there. I’ve gone.

*

Lapses

A ferry took us. Slow ship that moved through
water like a full city and landed

upon an open-edged building.
We were carrying some part of how much we’d each known

of exhaustion, which we’d packed in full and half
bags and lifted, pushed taut against the rail.

On arrival, all the gestures of split wet
wood and distance—and someone

put out a bowl of figs with their drowsing magic.
When left alone, I found and held
the limbs of the twisting mother tree.

Now into the black stove, I place logs and time here
is made as they greet and part, snapping the air.

I blow on the smoldering coals.
Here is what is fragile.

Here is what repair is. The mind I can use

to confront a lesser question. The boat will return.
I’ll once say I left for wetter places.

*

Lauren Camp serves as New Mexico Poet Laureate. She is the author of eight poetry collections, most recently In Old Sky (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024), which grew out of her experience as Astronomer-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park. Camp has received fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and Black Earth Institute, the Dorset Prize, a Glenna Luschei Award from Prairie Schooner, and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award and Adrienne Rich Award. www.laurencamp.com