Three Poems
by Lauren Camp
Two-Point Threshold Test
In the nearly negative hours, I tell a stranger
one ancestor was a peddler. I tell the grist
of this history. I never vary
what I heard of his grip, that when faith laid its signs
against his wheel, the man could no longer
haul to far houses. Maybe the center
of this tale is more than his hunger
wouldn’t allow him to take
what he needed. I spend days letting the sun land
hard on my spine. Each morning I pretend
to see the passage, that the wheel rattled
and this man who determined
to manage could not. Each morning, rain waddles
along the window without great exertion.
I whisper: touch, eddy, center. I am here. I am there.
Family Tree
Clothes of clove drift the anatomy
of travel. Away, the ground
charts between caution and inheritance.
All light lives unsheltered.
They might still be on the road
at dark; none jangled.
Barefoot, untidy, she hums a prayer
and within it, makes a nook. Clouds stretch
the surface. Call them
part of the going. Call this how they bridge
sidewise a constant desert.
They won’t detach, haven’t
more than just child,
child, tools, grain. Just hip
and edge. And not
hurrying, believe me.
They have acquired uncountable
hours. They are carrying barely
themselves, their lives
to fancy the simpler side.
How often
this trip they thought the dry
future and what is
going. And going, my family was
made to leave their torment.
Going my family was needful.
What must it be like to not know
the night ahead?
Whose hand held haunting?
Our history is the body.
I see how feet answer.
Distance: be it
mile on mile, owns no one.
First morning, a chorus and us
not knowing how to get to the enormous park
when we wanted the air identified, day prepared.
Went one straight line at one muscled hour as morning wrecked
and we returned where last been and shadowed back:
a roundabout. Walked through poverty, infinitely. After wanting
with the long intent to go, goodbye the winsome hope.
When the bus presses up, we feed our hands unknown coins
and thread 22 stops past the angel and the markets
and the succulents follow us, lusty.
People enter, slouch, laugh and leave at open doors,
perfect shudders. Waving blouses. Buckles, hips.
Diesel heckles the city with long spice.
Below me, outside, a man massages a pig torso; another
pounds chicken with an iron flat spatula. All relentless
edges. Selfless certain scenario. People in white put spirals
of sweets on trays. Two men heft and swing
a leather couch into a XX’d shop up two stories.
Some man on crutches, a tenor, sings Ave Maria.
Sound glitters my face. It’s not too late.
Skateboarders hurdle cardboard boxes. The sun conspires
pink and smug. Thousands stripe through crosswalks.
Green taxis kiss the ground with bright eyes.
The smell of heat rides on skin. I believe in this moment
when we look for a way and all of us find it.
June 10, 2026
Lauren Camp is the author of nine books, most recently Is Is Enough (Texas Review Press, 2026) and In Old Sky (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024), which grew from her experience as Astronomer-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park. Honors include a Dorset Prize, and finalist for the Arab American Book Award and Adrienne Rich Award. Her poems have been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, French, and Arabic. She served as the second New Mexico Poet Laureate (2022-25).