Philly Poetry Chapbook Review is pleased to feature Rebekah Wolman’s poem “Two egrets at the edge of a tidal marsh” as our second featured chapbook poem of Issue 10: Fall 2025. You can find more poetry in her chapbook, What the Hollow Held, published in June by Seven Kitchens Press.
Two egrets at the edge of a tidal marsh
A mother and a child, I think, then reconsider.
It’s a matter of perspective, of the angle and the distance,
whether one seems taller than the other, whether
one seems to take the lead as they tiptoe into
all that settles as the tide recedes.
It’s where the light is coming from that elongates
their reflection. It’s the direction and strength of the wind
that determines whether their mirror image
wobbles or stands still. There’s little at this distance to differentiate them.
The slightest alteration yields regret,
a feeling that something should have happened differently.
I visit with my mother, who used to be
the taller one. Now time is what differentiates
who’s the child from who’s the mother. Each morning of my visit,
I sweep up Rose of Sharon blossoms, fallen furled
as if ready to begin again at their beginning.
As if ready to begin again at my beginning
I sweep up Rose of Sharon blossoms, fallen furled,
each morning of my visit—or as if she’s the child and I’m the mother,
the taller one now. Time is what differentiates
this visit with my mother from what used to be,
a feeling that something could have happened differently.
Regret yields to the slightest alteration,
wobbles, then stands still. There’s little at this distance to differentiate us
or determine whether our mirror image
is a true reflection. It’s the direction and strength of the wind,
it’s where the light is coming from, that elongates
all that settles as the tide recedes.
Who seems to take the lead as we tiptoe into
weather? One seems taller than the other, whether
it’s a matter of perspective, of the angle or the distance.
A child and a mother, I think, then reconsider.
(An earlier version of this poem was published by SWWIM Every Day.)
About the Poem
Just home from the walk on which I observed the poem’s egrets two summers ago, I jotted down a few notes that remain almost verbatim in the final version’s first few lines. Weeks later, at the dining table in my brother’s house 3000 miles from that tidal marsh, I began to draft the poem under the title: ‘Watching two snowy egrets at low tide a few days before leaving to visit my 92-year old mother.’ Halfway down that page, I wrote ‘Form? Try it as a pantoum’—already contemplating form as a way to corral what felt like an unwieldy, multilayered conglomeration of image and idea. I copied the early lines onto a new page and circled potential end words for a sestina, along with my usual crib of the sestina’s repetition pattern and a trial first stanza. And then, at the bottom of that page, I wrote this note: ‘specular?/mirror (egrets a reflection of our situation? egrets reflected in the pond).’
Settling on the mirror form opened the way into the parallels between the original image of the egrets, their reflection, and their ambiguous relationship and the shifting, even reversing, roles of an adult daughter and her aging mother, not to mention the unusual re-furling of spent hibiscus blossoms into a bud-like shape.
I’m grateful to SWWIM Every Day for first publishing a slightly different version of the poem on-line on February 5, 2024.
Author Bio
Rebekah Wolman‘s poems appear in a variety of on-line and print journals and anthologies. She is a 2021 winner of Cultural Daily‘s Jack Grapes Poetry Prize, the 2022 winner of the Small Orange Emerging Woman Poet Honor, and a finalist for the 2023 Naugatuck River Review Narrative Poetry Award. A former middle-school principal, learning specialist, and English teacher, she is based in San Francisco, California, on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone people, and reads poetry for Psaltery and Lyre.
From What the Hollow Held
Selected as the 6th title in the A.V. Christie Series by Seven Kitchens Press, honoring women poets over the age of 50, these poems meld close attention to the natural world with the hard-won knowledge of being human–and mortal. “The slightest alteration,” one poem tells us, “yields regret” (“Two egrets at the edge of a tidal marsh”). The collection’s title is taken from a line in the poem “Late Father as Lost-Wax Casting,” which builds its striking, haunting metaphor with stunning skill.
Contents
Chapbook Poem: When I Was Straight by Dustin Brookshire
“‘When I Was Straight’ prompted me to think about a common queer experience—how most parents assume their children are ‘straight’ and expect their children to live a ‘straight’ life.” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for October 2025 along with words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: American Girl: Fort Hood, 2023 by Thea Matthews
“[W]eaving in and juxtaposing the lyrics of Tom Petty’s ‘American Girl.’ The song’s themes of desperation, wanderlust, and longing are subverted by Ana’s life and tragedy at Fort Cavazos, previously known as Fort Hood, Texas.” Read the featured Excerpt Poem for October 2025 along with words from the poet.
“It seems such a shame that a beautiful location is just gathering dust and overgrowth, and I wanted to lean into the juxtaposition of that.” Read three poems by Bryana Fern along with a few words about “Women on the Wall.”
Bodies in Transition: Sacred & Perishable by Carissa Natalia Baconguis
“There is a muscular intimacy to the ecosystem of these poems, each one of them creating as vivid a world individually as exists in the collection as a whole.” Read Gray Davidson Carroll’s full review.
“In ‘No Breaks’ I was writing about something I hope I never have to experience. … I tried to keep despair at bay and show some defiance and resilience.” Read two poems by Gerald Yelle along with a few words about “No Breaks.”
November ’25: New Staff, Issue Archive & Donations
Read a note from Editor Aiden Hunt about our new Poetry Readers, the additions of an Issue Archive and a Contributor Fund, Fall poetry submissions, and Gaza.
Chapbook Poem: Two egrets at the edge of a tidal marsh by Rebekah Wolman
“Settling on the mirror form opened the way into the parallels between the original image of the egrets, their reflection, and their ambiguous relationship and the shifting, even reversing, roles of an adult daughter and her aging mother…” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for November 2025 along with words from the poet.
Three Poems by Alexandra Burack
“Subsequent drafts enabled me to … uncover the metaphor of exile, whose meanings are intended to move readers from an experience of alienation to one of discernment of the liberating qualities of outsiderhood.” Read three poems by Alexandra Burack, along with a few words about “To Know Blue From the Color of Snow at Dusk.”