Gemini

If our memory serves the test
We remember them best
As a matching set of mischievous grins
Committers of small sins
Such as chasing the neighbour's cat
And all that

Born
Not as a result of a single cell torn
But as two
They spent the next fifty years, it's true
Trying to make up for the fact
That both were made with two separate acts:
Charles and Dave
Graves

They ran as children ran:
Up this street a boy and down a man
Same school, same friends, same broken hearts
Like two halves of a soul born minutes apart

They married two pleasant sisters from a pleasant family
Settled down together, and we
Said, "That's a thing that will not last."
But ten years passed.
The sisters, named Jean and Fay,
As it turned out, would have it no other way,
And delighted, when at the store,
To relate double tales of what their husbands had said and done and more

Alas
It came to pass
The twins who loved both Jean and Fay
Were widowed on the same day
(A mere coincidence ---
Separate accidents)
And with no children of their own
The two lived in the house alone

We watched them grow
Watched them love and marry and know
The pain of one life made
From two come lastly frayed
And we wondered when they would go
In summer or in snow

As it happened, Dave
Was out of town when Charles fell and could not be saved
And we knew
He'd die soon too
For hadn't the boys
Made noise
As one single trumpet since birth?
And so we counted Dave's days on earth

We stopped counting after five years
Dave stopped counting after five beers
He has the house, alone,
Wakes and sleeps on his own
Barely sees the hours in between
At least that what we've heard from his neighbour Mrs. Green

But some
Are not so sure of what he has become
For Dave does not cry
And Dave does not seem like a man about to die
His eyes are glistening
But his head is always cocked as though he's listening
To something only he can hear
Something soft, something near

And here we end our tale:
Nothing is certain beyond the pale
A soul, we said, in two, now torn again
And we count Dave among less fortunate men
We've seen the death of twins and wondered what came after,
And stood outside his window of a night, and heard double laughter.

8/14/01