A Poem by Chrissie Gittins

The Twin

He comes as he goes –
quietly, insouciant.
He infiltrates fissures –
dunes in a desert,
striations on bark,
the valleys between waves.
He inhabits piccolo solos,
sprouting spinach seeds,
the piped white icing
on birthday cakes.
He won’t be put in a box.
He dives between classic cars
in well-established dealerships.

She held his hand in the womb.
That’s the last she saw of him.
He floated over Siberia,
ran amok in a limestone gorge.

He makes an appearance when
she least expects it –
parents’ evening at her local school,
the queue for the post office counter,
the dentists’ waiting room
as she leafs through thin magazines.
He never stays long –
just enough to brew Assam tea,
to scuff a shoe on a fallen wall,
to watch a stag beetle drill through an ash tree.

Of course she misses him –
like a jumper shrunk in the wash,
like a sculpture stolen from a park,
like a friend who constantly woos her
and is never there when she calls.

Chrissie Gittins’ poetry collections are Armature (Arc), I’ll Dress One Night As You (Salt) and Sharp Hills (Indigo Dreams). She appeared on BBC Countryfile with her fifth children’s collection, Adder Bluebell, Lobster (Otter-Barry Books). She has received Arts Council and Author’s Foundation awards and features on the Poetry Archive. Her recent poems are published/forthcoming in Perverse, The Blue Nib, Anthropocene, Ink Sweat and Tears, High Window, and the anthologies A Poet For Every Day Of The Year, Empty Nest, Night Feeds and Morning Songs, and Women on Nature.