Fortune

Lauren Camp

I keep lists of plants and lists of the best of everything
else: lipsticks and Latvian streets and thrift stores
at every distance. I continue to think
it would be good to do some reliable fleeing.
I get ahead of myself,
seeking goodness at each next corner.
In September, I saw some of the space
on the surface of a desert:
a doll’s house of sedums,
an abacus of seedlings. I smelled the familiar
artemisia, the vertigo of the bleeding
heart. We’ve lived in the same house
for a score but took out peas and foxgloves, put in
small greening truth, particulate amidst rust.
We’ve built many gardens, and yesterday
crouched down to see what the plants have done
since the last time we crouched or dropped water on them.
And then we went to Tim’s
and he made curry and we hovered over old memories
sucking the nectar out of them, trying to remember
if they were true or right.
Full, we sat on the couch that came with his tiny
place and Tim showed us a ballet he had queued on his screen;
forty dancers skinned to transparencies,
bellying from hushed sounds to bending.
Tim had been away fourteen years.
Lived in Milwaukee near his mother.
He still has a globe of white hair.
Moment passes moment to make a lifetime.
I can no longer list the many people
I’ve been, all the proportion and practice:
breath and riddle worn soft.
It’s a new day. We might get rain.
I dress in a shirt the color of sky
and other pale traces. I’ll go outside.
The earth is full of surprises.
Dad once planted marigolds.

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Lauren Camp is the author of nine 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, and the forthcoming book Is Is Enough (Texas Review Press, 2026). She is the recipient of a Dorset Prize, a Glenna Luschei Award from Prairie Schooner, fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and Black Earth Institute, and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award and Adrienne Rich Award. She served as Poet Laureate of New Mexico from 2022–25. www.laurencamp.com