Poem of the Week

Uh-Oh, Uh-Oh

Chase Twichell

What bird says uh-oh, uh-oh?

Some kind of crow.

I used to know its name.

Whole flocks of names have flown

off into the trees and settled there,

just out of earshot.

What part of the mind studies

its own lapses and eclipses,

its habit of blocking one memory

with another, or the holes it makes

in the past, then leaves unfilled?

That’s a permanent question.

If I dwell on it too long,

snow from nowhere

begins to fall in the background,

and I forget what I was asking.

I’m trying to dream up a glimpse

of what death will be like,

but I don’t let myself dream it.

The Yale Review · “Uh-Oh, Uh-Oh” by Chase Twichell

what surprised you about the composition of this poem?

It’s not news that people my age (old) encounter problems with memory. As a poet, I’ve spent a lifetime studying the way the mind leaves its tracks in language, so when a trail disappears, then reappears (or not), it creates an immediate mystery I’m drawn to explore. I believe that each poem must make some kind of discovery, not simply articulate something already known or observed. The purpose of writing one, then, is to locate a question, and questions, I’ve learned, are harder to come up with than answers. What most surprised me about this poem is the way it turns its question back on the questioner, which changes its subject from memory to death.

Chase Twichell has published eight books of poetry, the most recent of which is Things as It Is. A new book is forthcoming in 2026.