Castor and Pollux

for Johnny

We’ve been brilliant Johnny, days gone by

singing or dancing leap-frogging our way down Main St.

Georgia on holiday a sudden parade of twins

clanking a piggly-wiggly cart

past the jailhouse jailbirds in orange

jump-suits craning, them not us,

through barbed wire at the spectacle of old

twins up one curb and down another

what were we carrying? canned collard greens

corn bread mix, beads & chatter & we took

pictures of everything, pawn shops &

flags us not them confederate

like kids again,

like didn’t you feel that quicksilver

Johnny that dropping away of, that... what... like

indifference finally & again putting our ears down to hear

rice crispies popping

like Woodstock like good mud

Never mind. We raked a lot of leaves

that day in Georgia. Pecan we put our white backs to it

to boot, bagged ‘em in plastic here’s to you

mr robinson and you looked awesome.

Lost 30 pounds on Atkins or South Beach

in your beach towel & worked like a bull

then slept for two days

on the strength of it, he’s still sleeping!

our nephews bounced on your belly

yanked my hair

before mom had her heart thing.

You know the heart thing, that shudder.

We’ve been six before

& will be again I swear I’ve screamed

mommy! Johnny we got the same mouth

different portfolios.

You wrote that Russian slut book

I slummed through Morocco

our genes our blood. Kids who love us.

Remember Johnny that picture you

took of me in front of the pawn shop?

I never knew what framed me old towers

& blood the cotton gin, your reflection. Or the one I took

of you Johnny before the flag the stars &

stripes & you such a damn Yankee all those

dead kids doodle dandy howdy doody

Tomorrow we turn 60. What you got?

I got a party & jug of frozen margarita

mix & just a little crepitus

in the old neck don’t you love

that word tequila & you got a las vegas time share &

diabetes & now we’ve come to the elephants

cause I’m thinking right now of Castor & Pollux

not the Gemini stars, which coincidentally we are

not the sons of Leda & the swan o staggering girl but

twin elephants cause twins are two both beautiful

greys full of lumber & grace silver brutes

who reigned in the Jardin des Plantes of Paris 1870

& I bet no one ever asked them if they

were identical like they asked us Johnny

all through elementary even though you’re a boy and I’m a girl

till the Prussians came how much you thirst

for a good invasion & a siege

& then the hunger came & the starvations followed

& they killed them Castor & Pollux the starving parisians did

lovely elephants killed, both & two eaten

& I wonder Johnny who broke first or if they broke together