A River in Egypt, and: What the Trees Said
- A River in Egypt, and: What the Trees Said
Egypt, Chase Twichell, Poetry
Chase Twichell, Poetry, sky, trees, snow, nature
A River in Egypt
Denial is not a river in Egyptsays my t-shirt, once Dad's.
But it is, with its crocodiles and palms,
and all the answers flying this way,little vanilla egrets low over the water,
over the banked crocodiles snoozingin the long self-sharpening shadows
which fall also on a table for one, on a balconyoverlooking a fork in my river in Egypt.
I have a perfect view of the place where one riverbecomes two, as if a mirror could be divided,
or a wishbone split itself.
Denial splits the mind, making one partinvisible to the other.
The two are strangers when theysit next to each other on the train
that makes rough music of Now or nevernow or never now. Never now. [End Page 8]
What the Trees Said
The trees have begun to undress.Soon snow will come to bandagethe whole wounded world.
When I was young I elopedwith the sky. I wore blue-black,with underlit ribbons of pink.
I asked the treesif they would be our witness,but the trees said no. [End Page 9]
chase twichell's most recent book is Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been: New and Selected Poems, which won both the Kingsley Tufts Award from Claremont Graduate University and the Balcones Poetry Prize. A new book is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press.
