Laura Reece Hogan

Prayer for Traversing the Eye

If I molt
peel and cast
the assemblage,
push aside / bend
behind can I sliver
shiver atoms spectral
can you splinter me
cut down the camel
of me shatter me
until I shed me
can you shove
me through
this frail
slit?

Laura Reece Hogan is the author of Butterfly Nebula (Backwaters, University of Nebraska Press, forthcoming 2023), winner of the Backwaters Prize in Poetry, Litany of Flights (Paraclete Press, 2020), winner of the Paraclete Poetry Prize, the chapbook O Garden-Dweller (Finishing Line Press), and the nonfiction book I Live, No Longer I (Wipf & Stock). Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Sugar House Review, Scientific American, RHINO, America, Connecticut River Review, Lily Poetry Review, Cloudbank, DMQ Review, and other publications. She can be found online at www.laurareecehogan.com.