Two Poems — The Argyle Literary Magazine

by Lynn Hoggard

Black and white photo of fly (Photo by Pedro Miguel Aires on Unsplash)

NO FLY BUZZED

Watching the room darken,

I could feel my breath

slowing, more shallow

each time.

No bird sang.

My heart, bags packed,

shuffled and waited,

and shuddered…

WORLD-DISSOLVING SOLVENT

Traffic ticket, garage door failure,

white blood count spike

(a disease in waiting?),

printer nonfunctional,

computer pirates crawling all over me,

temperature 5 degrees—

Where to go from zero?

First: a glass of wine

Second: unclench the teeth

Third: start this poem

Fourth: lean the head back, breathe

Fifth: drink it.

BIO: Lynn Hoggard received her Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Southern California and taught at Midwestern State University, where she was professor of English and French and the coordinator of humanities. In 2003, the Texas Institute of Letters awarded her the Soeurette Diehl Fraser award for best translation. Her books, Bushwhacking Home (TCU Press, 2017), and First Light (Lamar University Press, 2022) won, respectively, the 2018 and the 2023 Press Women of Texas awards for best book of poetry.