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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 haikuBitter Pills, has just come out.

https://emartinpedersenwriter.blogspot.com

facebook: martin.pedersen.7106

twitter: @emartinpedersen

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