TWO POEMS by Sebastian Merrill

inverse twin, lost sister

I.

              Like our dead, you live in memory:

our grandmother’s clouded eyes 
              saw you instead of me. In the cold, 
                            my bones still ache along your long-healed 

                                          fractures. I’ve spent years distancing myself
                            from you, but here, in our grandparents’ home, 
              I want to pull you close. When the spring 

snows melted, I left my apartment in the city, 
              headed north through twisting back roads
                            over mountains, stopped to pee, squatting

                                          behind bushes, until finally I arrived here, 
                            on this Maine island. The cottage still 
              overlooks the rocky coast. Every dawn, 

I paddle through the wind-whipped waves
              of the Thread of Life ledges, those jagged 
                            rocks the seals love. I find wonder 

                                          even in the swirls of floating plastic: 
                            deflated balloons, grocery bags, forlorn 
              shoes. Do you remember the summers 

we spent here? The swimming lessons 
              in the frigid water, the sea stars 
                            in the tidal pools? 

                                          My grief for our grandparents 
                            has grown without you. Also,  
              all the sea stars have disappeared. 

II.

              Where do we converge,

                                          overlay each other

                            like a poorly developed film,

                            our two images a blur of light and form?

                                          Where and when

                                                        do we divide? 

III.

Every Sunday I pierce my thigh 
              with the silver fish of a needle. 

                            Is this what separates me 
                                          from you? 

              I inject testosterone synthesized in a laboratory, 
                            made from soybean and yams. 

                            Like magic, it’s difficult to believe 
                                          this exhilaration of hair 

                                          on my face and chest 
                                          comes from plants. 

                            When I thief myself out,
              I am halted by mirrors: this beard

                                          that grows miraculous 
                                                        and strange. 

Persephone, am I the pomegranate and you the seed?  

I have no answers. 
I possess a tongue, maps,
night. Am I an arrow

from hell? An impossible
bending spoon? Estranged
in this new knowledge 

of the earth and the starless 
rivers that run beneath, 
I can no longer return

to how I was before.
You swear that without me,
winter. But did I choose to hide

the sun from the sky? 
Frozen, the ground cracks
with questions. I am still

tossing, pulled between two 
worlds. It’s hard to believe 
this same sun still rises even

after we were ripped apart.