Last Twin Standing
(In memory of Raymond, 18)

by Kathryn Jacobs


Forget about the shared umbilical.
I made a promise to your absent twin
that you’d stay put, feet planted. Huggable.
Besides, he needs an advocate, and I’m
too busy guarding you. It’s comical.
Now, when you don’t have cancer; when you’ve been
so level-headed: now is not the time
for worry, surely. But I’m skeptical:

suppose the Bastard’s bowling for a spare?
“One left, and you can’t have her!” (clutch the pin
defiantly). I may look funny there,
crouched down butt outward, mourning over nine
dead pins. But you’ve tried twice, and I don’t care
what anybody says: the last one’s mine.


© 2010 by Kathryn Jacobs


 

 

 

 

 


About the Author

Kathryn Jacobs a poet and a medievalist from Harvard with two volumes coming out in 2011; her book In Transit (David Roberts Press) and her chapbook, Signs and Portents (Finishing Line Press). She also has two prior chapbooks, a book of medieval marriage contracts, fourteen articles, and well over a hundred poems in a wide variety of journals. In 2005 she lost her son (Raymond) at eighteen, of sleep apnea; two years later his twin sister was diagnosed with melanoma (fine so far). She teaches at Texas A & M - C; and has one elder daughter far away in Chicago.

 

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