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