The Twin Episode
Martin Pedersen
Two identical twins separated at birth
only really it’s the same person in two parts
okay really it’s me (and me too)
one is a penniless pauper, a complete flat broke
down-and-outer with no plans for dinner (that’s
me) looking in the window of a closed bank
thinking that all that money in there
means food & shelter, dryness & warmth, health & the hope of love
but it’s in there locked up and he’s out in the street in January.
The other guy, better-dressed, came by the day
before with a plan and somehow (doesn’t matter, it’s fiction) got
inside the vault, then they closed the bank, locked him in, took off
with piles of fresh bills representing the Bahamas &
Maseratis, fruit cocktail & handmade shoes
but he has to wait until they open the thick door (assuming
the oxygen lasts) before he can get out to spend cash in the real world
of course, they’ll catch him when they open the vault (obvious coffin
symbology), besides that, the bank has gone bankrupt (don't ask
me how), closed for good and will never open again.
So ... hog-heaven or mongrel hell? --both twins dead soon anyhow.
Who’d you rather be, my friend, neither/either or both?
E. Martin Pedersen, originally from San Francisco, has lived for 40 years in eastern Sicily where he teaches English at the local university. His poetry has appeared most recently in Ginosko Literary Journal, Abstract Magazine, Neologism Poetry Journal, Poesis, Thirteen Myna Birds. Martin is an alum of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. His collection of haiku, Bitter Pills, has just come out.
https://emartinpedersenwriter.blogspot.com
facebook: martin.pedersen.7106
twitter: @emartinpedersen