Gin

BY LAUREN CAMP

The day’s first     gin
                 is throat dry, sharp

     and        pure.        Ice
                    still whole     when

  you get another.      You drink
                   until       the angle of half-

 light is lost         until the glass
              is               asleep by

 the door   and the glass
          empty       and the glass

    carried.            The words
         swallow          and all next year

         the distilled shimmer
                 in forgetting       the mind

   floats and widens
               below   anything bio-

 logical.    The mind
               with its musical light

          never surfacing the 
               never    mind infused

   in an    abyss deeper
               than the         mind

   until your       body
               is only this

 and fleeing           the body with-
                     in your body

   and the damage     is also parched
                 like this

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Lauren Camp produces and hosts “Audio Saucepan,” a music and poetry program that airs weekly on Santa Fe Public Radio. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Caesura, Rhino and other journals. She has also guest-edited special sections for World Literature Today and Malpaís Review. The author of the poetry collection, This Business of Wisdom (West End Press), Lauren is also an interdisciplinary artist and a part-time educator. She writes for the blog “Which Silk Shirt,” a resource for poetry and other fine writing. (www.laurencamp.com/whichsilkshirt).