Recent History of the World and Your Body

by Lauren Camp

Less to ache in this punishment than to know
how many ripples are in you

+ twist + yoke those brutish muscles. Sky colors will pass
at the gym window as you are curving

your center, relentless. Urging to better
the repetitions: palpable

form, tighten, arrange the inguinal quarrel. DJ Khaled + Bruno

Mars + their fixed beats + 5
people at the elliptical sloop without

footfall noise just the swish of the oval. At the free weights
insistent, you hold

five seconds further. To the intricate edge and sermon
of physical fiber. You know we live

in a grief: troops + displacement. When the steam engine
of anger runs through you, the tincture

useless, you go past
the doorstep to pummel the hexagonal losses.

How simple the limber
body, the trance of endurance. One inward hour to a next.

Lauren Camp is the author of four books, including One Hundred Hungers, winner of the Dorset Prize and finalist for the Arab American Book Award. Her most recent collection is Turquoise Door. Her poems have appeared in Poem-a-Day (The Academy of American Poets), Slice, Nashville Review, Poetry International, and other journals. She lives and teaches in New Mexico. www.laurencamp.com

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