Lauren Camp

Summer 2024 | Poetry

Inaptitude

There was a time I wanted

to know what I didn’t, and I drove

toward it, to frame a truth

as a cluster in the sky, a smudge, half

a million bodies of light, even

the smallest trembling

object. Orbit. Dwarf. To put

the matter into me

as more than patterns. As a house

of time. As more than

the bruise of night. Ghosts

moving beyond us. If I miss

both parents, why not

miss the long old past

further back? Why not

peer more than 11 billion years

out and learn it

as some sort of order? I didn’t

want to right then

or anymore simply

see the slight room

of now. I wanted beyond:

the beginning, the pace

of stars, their brackish trail. Wanted

even to drown in impossible

words for those pools

far away. The scientists told me

about thrust and lift and logic. Me

in the stupor of this

immensity. I took to the universe

as to a jacket, wrapped it

around, let it make me a cover.

Lauren Camp serves as New Mexico Poet Laureate. She is the author of eight books of poetry, including In Old Sky (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024). In 2022, she was chosen as the fourth Astronomer-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park. Other honors include the Dorset Prize, finalist commendations for the Arab American Book Award and Adrienne Rich Award, and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and Black Earth Institute. Her poems have been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, French, and Arabic.  www.laurencamp.com­

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