by Michael Emerald O.
And as November Folds into November
The desert is still so much the way it was
intended, the periodic table of raptures and nesting, the all-the-time
crumbling of those remaining
surfaces. On Thursday we ate soup
with perpetual heat added
at the last moment. Behind the house some rabbits left strands
of fur. We sat by the window
and watched birds
pause and we held this without matter, and we could bear it.
Flicker, raven, scrub jay, sparrow, oriole. All shades
of a world. The canyon carried trembling
wind that does not explain the opposing
end of the road. The gate
flat-faced. The ground fixed to
sticks, silt and particulate, obvious
juniper slow and toneless. A compass.
Time will fact its singular mouth, but I won’t hear
the same thing.
What is lost? There are still suns to sing.
Lauren Camp is the author of five books, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press), which Publishers Weekly calls a “stirring, original collection.” Her poems have appeared in Witness, Ecotone, Poet Lore and Beloit Poetry Journal. 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 poems have been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, and Arabic. www.laurencamp.com.
Michael Emerald O. (he/him) is a Nigerian poet, artist, & photographer. His creative works have appeared, or are forthcoming on Necro magazine, Nymph, Undivided magazine, Eboquills, Spring word web, Third Estate Art magazine, thehearth magazine, kalonipa, & elsewhere. He loves reggae & rap, adores football and mixing, and fantasizes about reincarnating as an angel. He tweets @GemmyEmerald.