In Montmartre
in a Citroën,
she sees the beckon,

eyes a grove
of breasts and legs
on men in heels,

everything dislodged
at dusk. She sighs
apart, the moment

an abbreviation.
The low haze of bodies
double-churns

toward night. Provoked
by these strange
strokes of lust: each

haughty hook
and click of shoe,
the trim and booty,

heat and complications,
she sees moons
with fragile centers.

And later,
when she lifts
a fork to eat

the wrack and stretch
of oyster belly,
taste its glide —

its sheen and suck
is all she wants
in her throat.

 
 
 

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Lauren Camp is the author of two volumes of poetry, most recently The Dailiness (Edwin E. Smith, 2013), winner of the New Mexico Press Women 2014 Poetry Book Prize and a World Literature Today “Editor’s Pick.” Her third book, One Hundred Hungers, was selected by David Wojahn for the Dorset Prize, and will be published by Tupelo Press in 2016. Her poems have appeared in Brilliant Corners, Beloit Poetry Journal, Linebreak, Nimrod, J Journal, and elsewhere. She hosts “Audio Saucepan,” a global music/poetry program on Santa Fe Public Radio, and writes the blog Which Silk Shirt. www.laurencamp.com