Put Someone Else in the Center
by Lauren Camp
What matters? I believe my body:
how it pleasures to sweet cream. Or ramps
in the pluperfect tense as some form
of old city persimmon. Sharp
science. Easy to envy
the body that scandals, that brings his fat coil
of noise to a crooked dark corner.
The way he does it.
And why. How instead
my body withdraws. Another olive pit.
I am lying down and thinking now
about the body as container, as silk road,
as post-realist movie, an autobiography
to accomplish in unfolded cottons.
At the place I am staying they discuss
the roadkill list while repeated fog narrows
the windows. Some bodies
need to pitchfork the food rawky
and gashed on the side of the road
Degradable currency. Strapped on.
With this body I’ve got, I again
wear the same sweater and make much
of the clatter and furnace each morning assigns.
The nightmares leave brunt-eyed.
A wince in the mind. Such a source map. A huddle.
My sister sent some castoff earrings as a gift
and I strung them on the table to admire their wings,
the gold holding her absence. I put each in a transparent
box and the box in the table beside my bed.
I never could glitter as portrait. I think the body
is someone’s chance for a story.
Sinking back, leaning in.
Let’s start on this problem solving.
Do you want to tell me about you?
I’ll always listen.
I can take myself out entirely.
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