Animals: “Context” by Lauren Camp

Context

He puts the dead cat in the hole we dug, 
her fur still warm. For a minute 
we have a small aperture of awareness.
My hair spatters into my eyes.

The last days, she fell off the windowsill;
we adapted to hold her more. 
Now the wind crawls over.

Tonight thousands of stars repair the sky.
With my phone I take a photo of the stars

and I’ve just now looked at the photo so I can show you
the dormant calm of light
but the photo is 
gray-black and etched empty
with two microscopic pinpoints.

Nobody else is here.
The traffic continues with its equations.

About Lauren Camp

Lauren Camp is the author of five books, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press), which Publishers Weekly calls a “stirring, original collection.” Her poems have appeared in Witness, Poet Lore, Kenyon Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Los Angeles Review, and other journals in the US and abroad. Honors include the Dorset Prize and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award, Best of the Net, and the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. Her poems have been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, and Arabic. www.laurencamp.com