Lorelei Bacht

TWO SOLDIERS

In winter, the forest becomes geometric, abstract. Black

lines against the silent white through which we wade, 

knee-deep - a terrible, a necessary march, a march across 

a hollowed out landscape of parallels. You stop to catch 

your breath, you say: so many of us must have died 

in the forest. I ask: Is it really that bad, to die looking 

at the mid-winter sun through tangles of frozen branches? 

Lorelei Bacht is a European poet living in Asia. Her most recent work has appeared / is forthcoming in The Wondrous Real, Visitant, Quail Bell, Abridged, Odd, Fahmidan, Slouching Beast, Post-Script, Wretched Creations, SWWIM, The Wells Street Journal, and The Riverbed Review. She is also on Instagram: @lorelei.bacht.writer