Twin-to-Twin Transfusion/Dear A-

I.

A while ago I knelt on a friend’s blue carpet

Screaming out to disco lights

To ask the question of

What If She Dies?

I charged you all with ignorance

For having your homes

Which never had been threatened

By (crudely imagined) plates of food

Left to rot in the kitchen bin.

And these plates of festered food

Never had driven you away

To other countries

When twin-to-twin transfusion

Took a terribly dangerous turn.

So that you, children richer than I

Never had been unwilling to return – as I had –

To the one-bedroom-flat

(Where side-by-side us four had grown)

And which in turn had not wanted my return, either.

That you

Whose parents did not marry outside of culture and religion

To settle in a country of which neither were fond

Did not, as I, have the family tradition

Of leaving home – and losing home.

II.

And I know – I know – 

That it is in part my fault.

For I have declined the calls

(And also drunk that shite corked wine)

With the express purpose

Of feeling in my gut

That loss of home

And that danger

To twin-

To-twin

Transfusion

Which has made me bend over

And lose all sense of balance.

III.

But:

As I charge you,

I first must charge myself.

For twin-to-twin transfusion demands my hand in it, too

And estrangement happens on both ends of the phone call.

And I one-day must recuperate my home,

When I may have it and it too, may have me.