Close Talking

In this episode, Connor and Jack dive into the beautiful and challenging poem "Snake White, Owl White" by Tacey Atsitty. They discuss finding poem's powerful sound and rhythm, its complex and contradictory expression of self, and finding other anchors as readers in the absence of clear narrative. Snake White, Owl White By: Tacey M. Atsitty When I say that my cheek fell, I mean the bone, the gliding pell sunken. I mean how it hides in rain, in a sky-lit cell, swelling. This is me fallen together, separated from her, that mistelling of Female Warrior Who Split in Two, who pulled from her gut-well a lumpy snake, pale with a scaling tongue; word-slit. I’ve heaved her pang, her yell at the snap of his tail. They drop like words at the end, a quell to the flood-line of an uvula, a face, a cheek pouch—high like shell veins. Birds swim silver in the sky. An owl drops to dwell with me. Gapes. It’s death. I step back. I can’t tell how he rises and dives at me, then turns flight just before my head.