𝙾 𝙲 𝙲 𝚄 𝙻 𝚄 𝙼

by Lauren Camp

It is exacting work, the fluid
motion through molecules into a milk-stretch

of clouds. You are lit by a small window. Nonlinear endless passage until you begin

to transfer down in a funnel
of trembling, some slump and arch, and against

odds, each physical
proximate layer of ether, and hardly are you

made solid before you’re stuffed into another and its small door shut and

breathless, the machine coils back up to the sky as it voices a new disposition and the wind

recurs onward. Acceleration and vehemence and adjusting to this you put your face to the window.

Once in a beautiful place,
it wasn’t the beauty

you held, but the start of a perpetual memory.

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Lauren Camp is the author of nine poetry collections, including In Old Sky (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024), which grew out of her experience as Astronomer-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park, and Is Is Enough (Texas Review Press, 2026). Her poems have been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, French, and Arabic. She served as New Mexico’s 2^nd Poet Laureate (2022-25). www.laurencamp.com­