Lubbock Lung by Taylor Light

I once heard a doctor could tell how long you’ve lived in Lubbock by how much dust 
resides inside your lungs.  I lived there seven years. I was 23  on  University Avenue, 
sweat-damp in a bar where the bourbon was cheap and the band played loud and a 
man with dust  on  his  boots put  his hand on my waist like he was steadying himself 
against the wind.  Everything in  Lubbock  wants  in—the  wind, the  grit, the  longing 
that has nowhere to go on a landscape so flat that it slinks around and around. I used 
to wipe it up. I used to think you could keep a clean house. 

Taylor Light’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, North American Review, The Missouri Review, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. Currently a PhD student at Southern Methodist University, she’s received support from the Stanford Humanities Center and the London Arts-Based Research Centre. She’s been nominated for Best New Poets 2026.

26 October 2026