Lauren Camp
he cracks his words to landscape and we sit there in his room with the spouts and limits without delight we shuck the pauses loving even hasps of his lost ranges there is no lesson in the enchanted lifts that turn to baffled syllables to stares what is left is his mouth as it works fragmenting air onto its shadow we offer house or road or names as big as mountains distant fixes for dad the version of a word has ceased to be nothing comes and he takes so long to circle back I hear crows writing on the sky flutter above the hot ground grab for shiny things I wait for his brain my father who once knew the words to reach us