Episode #110 - Snake White, Owl White - Tacey Atsitty

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. When I tell you

this is where bone rises to white,

I mean tomorrow, a minute later, dive well.

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