The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Is Is Enough by Lauren Camp

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PROGNOSIS

My father is all
at once. It is noon and widens
further into another
landscape of feet.
The words he uses are a measure
of the half-point
to silence. We listen
to the mirror on the wall
and my father is bent
down with
grizzle and returning
spaces. My father reminds me
of my father. Father
as conveyance, as legal
document, as night flight, lost
pitch. Next question. For something
to do, we name the body
by streaming daylight:
knee, nerve, stomach. Reason
the tender sound of sun. Name hope
as a pleasantry. We are spending
our time folded
into it, finding
ourselves. We are not
doing nothing. We are planning
the task of letting go
of all thought and my father is root
and tree. I put my hand
on his hand
and build a small
mountain. I haven’t described
his voice. An hour passes again.
A sound not said. A negative



ghost. A rain
unbuckles the leaves.
Perhaps we’ll look
in the mirror and see
what just happened—
what I mean
is, the future.

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