LAUREN CAMP

The Net Signal Reaches the Body in a Factor of 2

It is winter and constricted. I count 32 robins in the dead
tree at the curve of our road. Every moment we assess the end
of things, how many knives we will need to tender
the meat. More wings and happenstance. Before I leave, the mirror
shows me long lakes of my face. Another day to repeat
or to find the loose side of the mountain. I follow directions
to the undone shadow at a small corner off the Interstate, an exit
that gapes to sky where someone has hung racks of army fatigues
for sale. Rage on wheels. Many people shop with their backs
to our town. I hold gravel in my mouth. And in the little spot
at my hip, I plan to wrest hours for loving. There is a war
and we are reaching for it. There are things to buy
that lead to a life. Next time I drive to town, I see the top
of the mountain is missing, dusted with gray as a grief.
In the car, I spool sad verbs, and I say them mistaken,
hurried, the ravens reaching around. My beloved returns
from a cardiology appointment where he’s taken his compass
of anger and each consequence we can’t determine. The doctor
slung his metal to auscultate clouds. Heard the beat hymn
four times its normal. My love is tracked to blackness
and it’s happening fast. I want to explain how a button works:
I fix my ear to his chest to hear the fast cliff of its march.

Lauren Camp is the author of five books of poems, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Pleiades, Poet Lore, Slice, DIAGRAM and elsewhere. She has received the Dorset Prize, fellowships from Black Earth Institute and The Taft-Nicholson Center, and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award and the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. www.laurencamp.com