while she was pregnant,
that the images had trickled
into her womb and
imprinted on our easily broken bodies.
Back then, there would have been
someone to blame
and it would have been
Mom.
Nowadays the scientists know that she
did nothing wrong,
that it wasn’t her fault,
that our strangeness didn’t leak out of Mom’s
mind
like sewage into a clear stream
but was a simple accident at conception,
the ova
not separating like
it should.
This is science and progress
and it has to be a good thing,
but it makes me wonder
about the tests they’ve done
on Mom
to determine how it happened,
how we came to be,
and whether they could prevent
people like us from ever
being born
again.
In the Morning
We are stiff and sore
and our heads pound
with hangovers
so heavy that
even the plinking
birdsong is too
much to bear.
In spite of it all
we are smiling
and,
I think,
I have probably
never been
so happy.
A Thing He Is Doing
The hallway is a cloud of dust.
Dad is up a stepladder sanding a spot on the wall.
‘Hey there, girls!’ he says,
and ‘Careful of that can of paint,’
and, ‘I thought I’d freshen up the place.
What do you think?’
‘It’s an ace idea!’ Grammie shouts
from elsewhere.
Wallpaper pieces, torn and twisted,
are strewn on the floor
like fallen leaves.
It took Mom two weeks to put the paper up.
It cost her a fortune
and now Dad’s pulling it all down.
‘Where’s Mom?
Does she know what you’re doing?’
I am whispering.
I am so quiet the dust
doesn’t move
in the air.
‘It’s a surprise,’ Dad says.
He whistles
and gets on with the sanding.
‘How was your night?’
I know he wants us to be excited because
this is
A Thing He Is Doing.
And I really want to cheer him on.
But.
Tippi coughs and covers her mouth.
‘I think you should have told Mom,’ she says.
Dad stops whistling.
‘It’s a surprise,’ he repeats.
‘Ever heard of one?’
‘Yeah,’ Tippi says. ‘Thing is,
I always prefer to be happy than surprised.’
Hangover
We climb into bed
still wearing our dirty clothes from the night
before.
I try to read
but the words
twirl
on the page
unable to find a
secure spot,
so I listen to an audiobook instead
and rest my head on
my sleeping sister’s shoulder.
Lucky Avocado
Grammie is going on a date with a man she
met she at the bowling alley.
I didn’t know Grammie liked bowling.
I didn’t know bowling alleys were places to meet men.
And I can’t believe that someone
with a face as wrinkled
as an overripe avocado
has more luck
in love
than
I have.
Partners
When Mr Potter tells us to pair up
for the philosophy project,
Jon taps my arm and says,
‘Wanna work together?’
Tippi sniffs.
‘Grace and I are sort of a pair already,’
she says,
‘in case you hadn’t noticed.’
his fingers pattering my ribs
like piano keys.
‘But I thought you were separate people,’
he says—
testing her.
Tippi turns to her left and
taps Yasmeen’s arm.
‘I guess it’s you and me,’ she says.
Later Tippi says,
‘If you could choose between me and a boy,
who would it be?’
‘It’s just a school project,’ I say.
‘I know that,’ Tippi says,
laughing,
and out of the blue
punches me in the arm.
Live Forever Or Die Together
In English class
Margot Glass
reads out the poem she’s written
called ‘Love’
about a girl who is in
so deep
she wants nothing more than to
lie down
and die
with her lover.
Our classmates sigh and clap
and are in awe of Margot’s
depth,
the passion in the poem.
However.
They look at Tippi and me,
our forever togetherness,
as a couple cursed.
So when we tell them
we do not want to be apart,
waking alone in the mornings
and spending long days looking for someone
to share them with,
they assume there is
something very, very
wrong with
us.
And Yet
Being with Jon makes
me wonder
for a few fleeting seconds
what it might be like
to pull away from Tippi
for just a moment
and have him see me
as I am,
a single soul
with
separate thoughts,
and not another person’s
appendage.
Divided
‘Sometimes I wish I could see myself
through your eyes,’ Jon says.
We are pouring purple chemicals into test tubes
about to make them pop under the heat of a flame.
‘How do I see you?’ I ask,
knowing the answer already
and wanting desperately to tell him.
‘When you look at me,
you see something whole,’ he says.
He quickly cuts his hand through
the blue Bunsen burner flame.
‘No one is whole,’ I tell him.
‘We’re all missing pieces.’
Jon’s eyes crinkle—
his mouth looks unconvinced.
‘Plato claimed that
we were all joined to someone else once,’ I say.
‘We were humans with four arms
and four legs,
and a head of two faces,
but we were so powerful
we threatened to topple the Gods.
So they split us from our soul mates
down the middle,
and doomed us to live
forever
without our counterparts.’
‘I love Plato,’ Jon says,
and then,
‘So what you’re saying is that
you and Tippi are the lucky ones.’
‘Maybe,’ I say
because I do not want to admit
that my heart
has been divided
since I met him.
Expensive
Aunty Anne has had a baby—
a boy weighing in at seven pounds, two ounces.
I’m sure my aunt is thinking,
Oh God,
how on earth
will I ever pay for
all the food and clothes and college bills?
And sixteen years ago my parents were no different
except they
knew
they would never be able to pay
for everything we needed
and would
have to make do with
handouts from well-wishers
if they ever wanted to eat again.
‘Babies are worth every cent,’
Mom tells her sister on the phone,
opening a bill from Dr Murphy
and inspecting the balance
at the bottom.
But I’m not sure.
I’m not sure how much
lives like ours are
worth to the real world
and especially
to the insurance company which,
every day,
queries our need
for so much healthcare.
Redundant
Mom’s company laid off ten people this morning:
bing-bang-gone.
By noon Mom thought she’d survived the slaughter
and went for lunch,
bought herself a sausage sandwich
and a giant oatmeal cookie—
her favourites.
When she got back,
Mr Black called her in to his office
and told her the bad news.
It’s not her fault, apparently,
that they don’t need her any more,
just a sign of the times,
very bad luck.
Then
Steve from security followed her to her desk
and watched her pack up her things
like she was a criminal about to abscond
with the office stapler.
She said goodbye to her friends,
the women she thought were her friends,
who didn’t make eye contact as she
was led to the elevator
and through the revolving doors
in the glass building
to the street.
Now Mom is in bed crying.
No one can console her.
And very soon,
no doubt,
we’ll be destitute.
Bargaining
I kick off my sneakers but
Tippi keeps hers on.
‘You know he hates shoes in the living room,’ I say.
I can’t help my voice getting high,
sounding horribly like a schoolteacher.
Tippi pulls me down on to the sofa.
‘What’s he gonna do about it?’ she asks,
and puts her foot up on the coffee table.
‘I dunno,’ I say. ‘He’ll be annoyed. He’ll.
He’ll …’
I stop,
lean forward, and push her foot to the
floor.
Tippi turns to me.
‘He’ll drink no matter what we do, Grace.
You’ve got to start understanding that.
You can’t bargain with him.’
She touches the silver rabbit’s foot
hanging around my neck.
‘Haven’t you covered this with
your shrink yet?’
‘I don’t know what the hell
you’re talking about,’ I say,
pulling away,
tucking the pendant
into my shirt
to hide it.
‘Yes, you do,’ Tippi says,
and slams her foot
right back up
on the coffee table.
At Two A.M.
A door bangs. Pots clang.
A radio blares out
late-night symphonies
over curses and groans.
Dad is making himself a meal
now the rest
of us are in bed
trying to get some sleep.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ I wonder aloud.
Tippi sniffs.
‘Maybe he found out I didn’t
take off my shoes.’
Cutbacks
It starts with no more nights out at the movie theatre,
no new clothes or money for restaurants.
It starts out with regular cutbacks
that none of us notice
all that much.
But
then it’s no money for gas and no money for meat
and no money for any treats
or frittering
except healthcare
because
Mom
won’t skimp
on that.
Contributions
Grammie sells a few old rings and things
on eBay
to keep us ticking along.
Mom spends long hours ironing for cash,
undercutting the women in the Laundromat,
earning hardly anything.
And a couple of nights a week
Dragon babysits our neighbour’s
little boy.
Everyone is pulling their weight
except Dad.
Except Us.
‘We have to help out,’
I tell Tippi.
‘And what do you suggest?’ she asks.
I push her bangs out of her eyes.
‘You know how we could make
thousands without
giving up a thing,’ I say.
Tippi sighs.
‘If we went on television,
we’d be giving up
our dignity, Grace,’ she says.
‘And I won’t let us lose that.’
But what’s the point in saving your pride
when you’ve given up everything else?
That’s what I want to know.
Adjournment
Dad helps Mom update her résumé and
they laugh loudly,
sitting side by side at the computer,
hands touching.
Maybe it means
they love each other again.
Maybe Mom losing her job
could be a blessing
instead of the curse
we all thought.
But then
Mom goes out.
She’s only away a couple of hours,
but it’s long enough for Dad
to forage for booze and
get blotto.
Tippi and I hide in our room
picking through homework handouts and
upcoming quizzes,
wishing Dragon weren’t still at the studio
so we’d have a comrade to help
us see out the night.
But nothing happens.
We creep into the kitchen,
where Mom is sitting slicing lettuce.
‘Everything OK?’ I say.
Mom looks up and nips the tip
of her finger with the knife.
Bubbles of blood ooze on to the table
though she doesn’t seem to notice.
‘I’m making a Greek salad,’ she says,
and we nod.
‘I’ll get the feta,’
Tippi says gently.
But Mom shakes her head.
‘I didn’t have money for feta,’
she confesses,
then puts her ring finger into her mouth
to suck away the blood.
Around Strangers
Mrs McEwan from upstairs stands in our doorway,
her son Harry
balanced on her hip.
‘Is Dragon home?’ she asks,
looking at neither of us particularly.
I shake my
head.
Tippi says, ‘She’s at dance practice.’
Mrs McEwan sighs.
‘Oh, what a shame.
Well, if she gets back soon,
will you tell her I came calling?’
I nod.
Tippi says, ‘We can watch Harry for you,
if you like.
We’d love to.’
Mrs McEwan swallows hard.
‘Oh no. Oh no.
He’s sort of nervous around strangers.’
The toddler grins
and reaches for one of my hooped earrings.
Mrs McEwan pulls him back
and laughs.
‘Tell Dragon I called, OK,’ she mumbles,
and scurries up the stairs
to her apartment
taking her precious
‘frightened’
bundle
with her.
Easy Money
If I owned a pistol I could rob a bank.
I could stick a gun in a teller’s face
and demand a stack of cash
then motor off in a stolen Maserati.
I could sell drugs to kids on street corners
or pimp out girls to the highest bidder.
I could break any law I wanted.
If they imprisoned me,
they’d have to lock up Tippi too,
which is false arrest,
illegal,
and would never stand up in a
court of law.
If I didn’t have this damn conscience,
we’d be rich.
Apologies
‘I’m sorry,’ Mom says,
sitting us down on the bed
so we won’t storm off
before she’s had a chance to finish.
‘We’re moving.
We can’t afford the apartment any more
or the taxes to live in Hoboken.
We can’t even afford to pay the
goddamn phone bill.