Monday April 11th, 2016

The exercise:

Write something that has to do with: it takes two.

This is a scheduled post. If you're reading this then Kat has likely gone into labour today.

Whee!

Be back in a day or two.

Mine:

One
Without its pair
Seemed so...
Incomplete.

At least
So it seemed
To the two of us:
One brother to two sisters,
One sister to one brother.
How could we
Stop at just
One?

One
With no sibling
For support,
To strengthen.
No one else
To understand
Just how crazy
His parents truly are.
Not a
One?

No.
So
One became two,
And three
Became four,
And a family
Became...
Complete.

3 comments:

morganna said...

Two to make a marriage, a
Wedding -- no, that's four
One to decide it's over

Two for a murder -- one
Will kill, one will be killed
Once I was part of a two.

Today I am one
Waiting for fate to decree:
One alone, or two in a killing.

Greg said...

@Morganna: ...and you treat us to a coda for the Wedding suite, still an acrostic and a puzzle at the same time, as to how many people will be charged for how many crimes. I really like the tangle that this poem creates and the way it pulls all the previous threads tight and knots them together. Beautifully done.

@Marc: With Marc, Max and Miles, when are you telling your wife that you've legally changed her name to Mat?
Your poem is informative, which I wasn't expecting, and an interesting twist through plausible reasons for a second child :) I can kind of agree with them (though I'm clearly not crazy so no child of mine would need a sibling to help them understand me. A psychiatrist perhaps, if Dr. Fraud becomes available ;-) ) and I hope Max and Miles do when they're older :)

It takes two
"'Ere, mister." The voice had the heckling strength of age and the ride-operator mentally braced himself for what was to come next. He knew he wouldn't listen, but he had to give the impresson of it or his own mother would chew his ear off over dinner than evening. "You, with the saggy hat. You!"
"It's a flat cap, ma'am," he said, turning to face an elderly lady with a face like a prune and make-up by Helen Keller. "It's supposed to look like this."
"It looks like a tit before boob surgery," said the lady sharply. "Anyway, your ride. It says 'ere that it takes two."
"Yes ma'am," he said, filing away the comparison for the pub later that evening. "That's correct."
"It only doesn't." She pointed a stick-like finger, the shrivelled skin on it reminding him of a congealed chicken drumstick the morning after the dinner party. "I can't fit on there with her!"
He stared at the morbidly obese woman who was occupying all the seat on the ride, and spilling over the edges.
"She's too big," he said. He looked round. "Jesus on a stick. I mean, she's gone and broken the 'you must fit through this gap to ride' gate. That's gonna cost money."
"She got through, so she can ride!"
"She broke my ride, and she's getting off before she tips the whole thing over!"
"She's got ears! She can hear you you know."
"I don't see how, given that all that fat is covering them up!"
They were inches away from each other, staring into each others' eyes, blazing with righteous indignation.
"She's your sister!"
He pulled back, regaining some of his composure. "I'm an only child ma'am," he said. "Now get her off the ride before she injures herself."

Marc said...

Morganna - I think my favorite line out of all yours is 'One to decide it's over'. I really like the finality there.

Greg - eh, her middle name is Mary, so I suppose she's allowed in the M club :P

Yes, clearly you are not crazy. Clearly.

Love your descriptions in this, as disgusting as some of them are. Definitely also filing away 'It looks like a tit before boob surgery' as well :D