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
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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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