As usual, there goes your
sallow face
in a dirty
shop window; not just
a reflection—the sum
total
of all the
things you don't know.
You'd think
that understanding
would look a little different
from its
absence—but it
doesn't.
You stop. For a
second, both of you
stop. This is
no stranger—not even
a vague shadow.
This is your twin;
this is your exact double.
Except—that rift
(which you feel beginning
to pulsate now
as a physical thing;
wavering
but thick,
cold and impenetrable,
like the tight knot of muscle
between your stomach
and your lungs) you sense
isn't mutual.
Some gaps
are real; certain lacks
are both
solid and unbridgeable.
You could
bring him water—but you couldn't
make him take it.
You could never
make your
right hand do
the things his
left one is doing.
