Ceremony in the Room of My Father
Lightning came along eight times today.
You could imagine the troublep
with exaggeration. The slight reality as he puzzles out;
the matter. Words are like crickets, rubbing their feet
around him. Words lie for hours under the covers. Everything is
monotony, he says as he’s dancing. I ask how his day was
where he is going
next. He sighs, says he must eat again. Each time
I want him to laugh. I laugh.
He asks, Have you heard from the dead lately?
He walks down the hallway to his room and in his room
he looks up to a photograph
of his sister: slight, her unruly hair. My aunt destroyed
by fire. He stays in the form of forgetting
in this room that is always summer, the heat
rehearsing its heaviest breathing. His days are like walls
and this is the least
of the future. He says he is not hungry
and everything indescribable
is in my mouth every time he is lacking. Goodbye, I say
on the phone, and my verbs shape as bleached
rain. Hello, he says and the word keeps
tipping the edge. Even his preserved phrases
are a prayer book. Let me sing another
minute to minute of what he can see
and where knowing leans. He naps
in his white chair. He eats and exists
in the world. The sun is blistering. Everything is
without reason or otherwise. I give him the terms that have gone
to air—the air an assurance, compelled to speak.
Lauren Camp is the author of nine books of poetry, most recently Is Is Enough (Texas Review Press, 2026) and In Old Sky (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024), which grew out of her experience as Astronomer-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park. Honors include an Academy of American Poets fellowship, a Dorset Prize, and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award and Adrienne Rich Award. She served as Poet Laureate of New Mexico from 2022-2025. www.laurencamp.com
