Cracked Stucco
I spent the week driving past disappointing cows
to teach the desperate to know when
to unspool a blankness.
Today is Sunday and everyone is hot
in their feathers. Snap
and unbutton. Sweet peas droop,
choosing reluctance.
Our valley is salted and rough
in the steady repeat of wistful rust.
Already half the day is gone to the elusive.
Horsehair, apertures. A raven in its oily black cloth.
Now when I lean over the sparse soil
with intense concentration I remember
that once my body was neat
and frail, and we didn’t yet know desert’s soot or raw
condition. This was before the wind
sounded always like scolding.
I knitted and hammered seeds into the earth
wanting armfuls of blissful
flowers. I believed
in a culture of praise and fences.
Keen on intimacy, vow and house.
Before the world’s many ruins.
Is it a prayer to let go the forgotten?
to teach the desperate to know when
to unspool a blankness.
Today is Sunday and everyone is hot
in their feathers. Snap
and unbutton. Sweet peas droop,
choosing reluctance.
Our valley is salted and rough
in the steady repeat of wistful rust.
Already half the day is gone to the elusive.
Horsehair, apertures. A raven in its oily black cloth.
Now when I lean over the sparse soil
with intense concentration I remember
that once my body was neat
and frail, and we didn’t yet know desert’s soot or raw
condition. This was before the wind
sounded always like scolding.
I knitted and hammered seeds into the earth
wanting armfuls of blissful
flowers. I believed
in a culture of praise and fences.
Keen on intimacy, vow and house.
Before the world’s many ruins.
Is it a prayer to let go the forgotten?
Lauren Camp is the author of five books, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press, 2020), which Publishers Weekly calls a “stirring, original collection.” Her writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Pleiades, Witness, Poet Lore, and other journals. Honors include the Dorset Prize and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award, the Housatonic Book Award and the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. Her work has been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, and Arabic.
Art: Public Domain