Lauren Camp
Praised Are You
We whispered our guest to the forest,
to open him to our slight green alphabet and he smoked
weed to get through the flow
of the path. His eyes brightened with the thought of being beside me and God
I was tired from all
the action, all the cheese we kept
eating. Though this was my home, nothing was
slow. I wanted
to be slow, without all the want
he talked of while we trampled on. There was no evidence of
me though I was there, looking far off
and he was dunking
his body under the waterfall, explaining the chill.
Lauren Camp is the Poet Laureate of New Mexico and the author of An Eye in Each Square (River River Books) and Worn Smooth Between Devourings (NYQ Books), both forthcoming in 2023. Her honors include a Dorset Prize and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award, Housatonic Book Award, and Adrienne Rich Award for Poetry. She is an emeritus fellow for Black Earth Institute.