--I’M JUST A LITTLE WEAK ON MY FEET

                                   It Was Always You and I

The spiders are back, lounging over the sides of the dock like window cleaners hanging off skyscrapers.

Yet, all I can picture is you, along with that ratty, plush panda you loved so much, a panda you named Armie. 

Do you remember that?  How I asked, “Why Armie?”

How you said, “He’s an army man.  Made of armor, like a shield.”

How I said, “Oh, I get it, I guess.”

And how your last words were, “Don’t tell Dad, but Armie makes me feel better when you’re not around.”

The day we discovered Armie shredded, a trail of fluff leading to the garbage can, you stopped talking for good.  After that, you carried a fistful of plush in your pocket everywhere you went.

Eventually, you and I found a way to communicate with our minds, without words, a trick only twins know, though you paid for that, too.

Of course, Dad never liked you.

But he didn’t like me either. 

That’s why no more spoken words.  That’s why all the bruises and scars.

You and I, we matched our birth mother almost perfectly.  Our noses, our lids, foreheads, and chins.  Even our flat, pan-like faces resembled our birth mother. 

And because of those similarities, we were easy targets.  We were sluggish rabbits, one-winged moths.

But tonight, let’s focus on something else, like Luna, your favorite.  See her up there?  Perched on less-than-sturdy legs?  See how her wobbly glow sputters messages across the lake waves below?

I figured you did.

I cup a drink in my hand, as if it’s your chilly palm instead.  Behind me, my wife calls out, “It’s fucking freezing out there.  Come in.  It’s late.”

The others, they threw dirt across your casket, a shower of thudding brown pebbles and clotted clay.  But I couldn’t.  I didn’t believe for a second you were inside that box. 

Instead, I plucked a flock of butterflies off the limb of a nearby tree.  Set them free.  Watched them flutter, iridescent.  Extraordinary in every way.