1.4 To my twin brother
There are some things I still need to know:
How can I talk to you when we have forgotten our language? Where
Can we meet now that our mother is long dead?
How can I bring you gifts when you
Are bringing me gifts? How could our father
Be in the picture when he was always taking it? What
Is this we hold up between us – is it a trophy,
Did we compete for it, is it alive or dead? And how can
My sons speak to your daughters
When they have never learned our language? Where
Can they meet now that their fathers have no place
To meet? How can they share what they have when they have
Nothing in common? And what is this they hold
Up between them? Is it their grandmother’s wedding band,
That gateway through which their fathers entered
Life, through which their grandfather left it?
Why are you left handed while I am right handed?
Why did you have daughters while I had sons?
Which of us could have been the other’s sister?
And what is this we hold up between us?
Is it perhaps a mirror? Or a moon trail
On the placid ocean where the reflections of our mother and father
Are not disturbed, sitting under Royal palms
On the Picton foreshore, tinkle of jazz from the ferry,
Sons unborn, cheek by cheek under Gemini?
© Ian Wedde |
