for Agnes Martin I walk the planes of this last town, symmetrical, enclosed. When she quit the city to break from her constant hysteria, she promised herself the apology of firmness. And she repeated it. Had to separate the voices. Though she couldn’t recover, she could hold her flush from its strata and heaving and flat-manner a composure, put the question of being in the right order. She fit to a square within mottled adobe. Bright and wide, the light. She lived a long time in the unmarked eternity. What drifted easy in the mind. She listened, then drew a light line through a bland center, a line which looked like nothing but was an actual place, the warmth of her hand and also a surrender.
Bio: Lauren Camp is the author of five books, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press). Honors include the Dorset Prize and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award, Housatonic Book Award and New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. Her poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Witness, Poet Lore, and Beloit Poetry Journal, and her work has been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, and Arabic. www.laurencamp.com