“Symmetrical Companion” by May Swenson
It must be
There walks somewhere in the world
another
another namely like me
Not twin
but opposite
as my two hands are opposite
Where are you
my symmetrical companion?
Do you inhabit
the featureless fog
of the future?
Are you sprinting
from the shadows of the past
to overtake me?
Or are you camouflaged
in the coloured present?
Do I graze you every day
as yet immune to your touch
unaware of your scent
inert under your gaze?
Come to me
Whisper your name
I will know you instantly
by a passport
decipherable to ourselves alone
We shall walk uniformed
in our secret
We shall be a single reversible cloak
lined with light within
furred with dark without
Nothing shall be forbidden us
All bars shall fall before us
Even the past shall be lit behind us
and seen to have led
like two predestined corridors
to the vestibule of our meeting
We shall be two daring acrobats
above the staring faces
framed in wheels of light
visible to millions
yet revealed only to each other
in the tiny circular mirrors
of our pupils
We shall climb together
up the frail ladders
balancing on slender
but steel-strong thongs of faith
When you leap
my hands will be surely there
at the arc’s limit
We shall synchronize
each step of the dance upon the wire
We shall not fall
as long as our gaze is not severed
Where are you
my symmetrical companion?
Until I find you
my mouth is locked
my heart is numb
my mind unlit
my limbs anointed
I am a marionette
doubled up in a dark trunk
a dancer froze
in catatonic sleep
a statue locked
in the stone
a Lazarus wrapped
in the swaddling strips
not of death
but of unborn life
a melody bound
in the strings of the viol
a torrent imprisoned
in ice
a flame buried
in the coal
a jewel is hidden in a block of lava
Come release me
Without you, I do not yet exist
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