This feature, chosen by Guest Editor Ezra Fox, is from Is Is Enough by Lauren Camp (TRP: The University Press of SHSU 2026).
STRANGERS IN OUR OWN EARTH
We have been made into something other:
something ancient, swallowed—
badland curves set from the once of subtropics,
maybe single-celled algae and zooplankton. Behind each cretaceous sea
we are the same buried peat. The desperate hunger
of crocodiles and turtles, those nubbed skins
affixed in suspension. What marks us is
the trapping of buried shale and siltstone, the early sternum
of existence. We are confessed
in installments, each realm rendered to gully
and splinter. Let me tell you, an eon
is one of my names. Name me in floating and flint,
mercy and sand. Name me bird,
detail, the very least. Name me the punishment
of history, what broke, what isn’t still lit. Name me the water as it lifted up
what it could to make exiled artifact.
We have traveled a long way to dwell on colors
that lip our past. Fragments of struggle. Though it all seems faded
to inner layers, and no one
remembers what’s nested, the story of dying is much more
than some parts swift vaulted. Time is not simple, not
quick pickled deterioration. I was an artist once.
Within me, perfect vibrance, twin constellations.
You could say the years constricted and then sank into silenced. I stopped
and was lost for a storm then droned
a winter by the window. Every angry breath became
the same consistency. But to reshape, you hold what
hollers out from under you.
Some wings are left in the depth
and hogback ridges. Old reds prove safe-kept by compressing.
Lauren Camp (she/her) is the author of eight previous collections, including In Old Sky (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024), which grew out of her experience as Astronomer-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park. She served as New Mexico Poet Laureate from 2022-25 and founded the New Mexico Epic Poem Project. Honors include fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and Black Earth Institute, a Dorset Prize, a Glenna Luschei Award from Prairie Schooner, and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award and Adrienne Rich Award. Her poems have been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, French, and Arabic.
Ezra Fox (they/he) is a Best of the Net nominee who lives and writes in San Francisco, CA and holds an MFA from Indiana University. A Breadloaf, Tin House, and Lambda Literary Fellow, and recipient of the Lili Elbe Memorial Scholarship, which recognizes transgender writers of exceptional promise, their work appears or is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, The Pinch, Fourteen Hills, Interim, and elsewhere. Additionally, they won the 2025 West Trade Review Poetry Prize, and currently serve as assistant judge of the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Apart from writing, Ezra maintains a daily practice of reconnecting with their inner child: roller-skating, playing drums, and enjoying animated films and theme parks. In quieter moments, they can be found sharing cups of tea and sweet treats with their beloveds. Learn more about Ezra at ezrafox.net or on Instagram @ezraxfox.
