Doppelgänger
by and published in Edition Four of Pomegranate
for C.G.
I stole part of your soul. It happens, sometimes.
It was such a little thing, and it wasn’t as if
I tried to pretend that it was mine – I just said
isn’t it pretty? and then showed it off to passers-by
like a new pocket-watch. Looking for yourself
in a shop window, though, you recognised your face
in someone else’s clothes and saw a stranger there,
wearing a borrowed hat in the reflection like a bad disguise.
Afterwards, at the inquest, at the Truth and
Reconciliation hearing, you told me that you didn’t mind.
It was just the shock – like a surprise head massage
from a woman attempting to sell you metal spiders
at a stall in Camden Market, or somebody
giving you a three-way chess-set, or an unexpected kiss.
Anthony Adler
Anthony Adler was born, once.